Hindi
Three Indians selected for Asian Film Academy in Busan
NEW DELHI: Three Indians have been selected for the Asian Film Academy (AFA), a filmmaking education programme of the Busan International Film Festival.
Tojo Xavier Cheruthuruthil, Mikhail Marak and Manas Mittal are the ones who are selected for this.
AFA selected 24 participants for its 2014 edition from all over Asia. Renowned Hungarian director Béla Tarr will be heading AFA 2014 as the dean, and Busan Film Commission Director OH Seok-geun will also double as the deputy dean.
Korean director Song ll-gon (directing mentor) and Polish cinematography director Ryszard Lenczewski (cinematography mentor) complete AFA 2014 faculty.
The 24 fellows will produce two short films which will be officially presented in the 19th Busan International Film Festival. Other AFA programs include workshops, a master class, special lecture series and mentoring.
Asian Film Academy 2014 will be held for 18 days from 35 September to 12 October.
The Academy has selected three persons from the Phillipines; two each from China, Singapore and Korea; and one each from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
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.
