Hindi
PVR Director’s Rare to release Shuttlecock Boys on 3 August
MUMBAI: Known to be releasing good films, PVR Director‘s Rare is set to release Indie-film Shuttlecock Boys on 3 August.
Shuttlecock Boys, made under the banner of Pennywise Films, will not only take the audience through a journey of life, but also reach out to everyone wanting to chase their dream as well. It‘s a story that revolves around the lives, successes and failures of four friends who hail from lower-middle class backgrounds living in Delhi with a question trickling down their minds.
Should we accept what life offers to us on a platter or should we try to chase our dreams, taking the path less taken? That‘s the question protagonists Gaurav (Vijay Prateek), Manav (Aakar Kaushi), Pankaj (Alok Kumar) and Loveleen (Manish Nanwani) seek answer to as they decide to embark upon an eventful journey that will change the course of their lives and careers forever.
Shuttlecock Boys is 76 minutes in length, made on a shoestring budget of Rs 3.5 million (personal savings and loan from friends & family), took almost 4 years to be finished and has four non-actors as protagonists.
PVR Cinemas joint MD Sanjeev Kumar Bijli said, “I am delighted to announce the release of our ninth movie Shuttlecock Boys under the PVR Director‘s Rare Banner, which will be released exclusively at select PVR Cinemas. Shuttlecock Boys by Pankaj and Hemant is an honest and refreshing film that has a heart. The protagonist in the film demonstrates courage, determination and persistence which our patrons will appreciate.”
“With PVR Director‘s Rare, we have been able to bring distinctive movies for our patrons. We have released eight films under our banner and each movie is equally different from the previous one like Supermen of Malegaon was an independent documentary film that tickled the funny bone while Kshay was a grave movie that took an unforgiving look at obsession. We feel delighted that we have been able to deliver a meaningful cinema to people and further promise to bring many such movies in coming future,” he added.
The film, that has been produced by Pankaj Johar, Hemant Gaba and Thakur Dass, has been well-received at international as well as national film festivals.
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.
