Hindi
Shabana Azmi in Pakistani film The Dusk
MUMBAI: Following Kirron Kher and Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi is doing a Pakistani film. While Kher was seen in Khamosh Paani, Shah played an important character in Khuda Key Liye.
Azmi plays a significant role in producer Wajahat Abbas Kazmi‘s film The Dusk. Confirming the news, Kazmi in a statement said, “Yes, Shabana Azmi will be here soon to act her part in the film and we hope that her presence in the movie will add extra value to it. It‘s a small role but of a very important character in the film.”
The film is the story of a newly married couple and how their lives change barely five days after their wedding when the husband is kidnapped. The film also touches upon the topic of Osama Bin Laden‘s death.
Azmi will travel to Pakistan to shoot her part of The Dusk that is in its last stages of production.
Incidentally Azmi is not the only Bollywood actor to foray into Pakistani films lately. Shweta Tewari and Johnny Lever are said to feature in some of the big upcoming Pakistani films.
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.
