Hindi
Players and Agneepath to release in January
MUMBAI: Breaking away from the practice of keeping away from big ticket films in the opening month of the year till yet, filmmakers are gearing up to release the films in January net year.
Slated for January are two mega-budget films, Abbas-Mustan‘s Players that releases on 6 January and Karan Johar‘s Agneepath that releases on Republic Day. Meanwhile, the Vidya Balan-starrer Kahaani and Ratan Jain‘s Tezz have been pushed ahead.
“Though the year would have started on a cracking note if Agneepath would have clashed with Tezz, but unfortunately that has been averted. But there‘s enough buzz about Players to keep the anticipation high,” observed trade analyst Taran Adarsh.
Apart from these two, there are almost eight to 10 mid to small-budget films that would release in the opening month. They are 3 Bachelors, Chaalis Chauraasi, Chaar Din Ki Chandni, Ghost, It‘s My Life, Sadda Adda, Tutiya Dil and Ghantey Mein 5 Crore.
Filmmakers have for long been wary of releasing their films in the month of January, but now they have realised that a well-marketed, good product will work no matter the time of the release while a bad product will flop no matter how auspicious the date of release.
But all that finally changed this year, after four of the seven films released were declared hits thus breaking the January jinx.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
