Hindi
Tribute to Irrfan Khan to be the highlight of Florence Indian filmfest
NEW DELHI: A tribute to actor Irrfan Khan, who will soon be seen in Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World (the new chapter in the Jurassic Park saga out in June 2015) will receive Europe’s first tribute, with the screening of three of his films at the 14th River to River Florence Indian Film Festival in Italy, later this week.
The festival being held from 6 to 12 December will feature Qissa by Anup Singh (Italian premiere on 7 December) in the presence of director Anup Singh and Irrfan Khan), Paan Singh Tomar by Tigmanshu Dhulia (Italian premiere, on 8 December), and the cult movie The Namesake by Mira Nair (on 12 December).
In addition, seven episodes of the third series of the US HBO episodes of In Treatment that the actor starred in will be screened from 9 to 11 December. Khan will receive ‘The Key to the City’ from the Lord Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella.
Apart from Florence, this festival will be held in Rome on 13 and 14 December and in Milan in February. All films will have English and Italian subtitles. Also, for the first time, the festival will be held in Mumbai in March next year.
The festival will open with the Italian premiere of the on-the-road comedy Finding Fanny by Homi Adajana, with a stellar cast including Nasseruddin Shah, Arjun Kapoor, Pankaj Kapur, Dimple Kapadia and Deepika Padukone. Deepika Padukone stars in the closing film too- Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
The selected short films, all Italian premiers, are 6 Cup Chai by Laila Khan, Dreamworks by Vishal Vittal, Hechki by Kartik Singh, My Dear Americans by Arpita Kumar, The Frame by Samvida Nanda (directors Laila Khan and Kartik Singh will meet the audience); 8 to 8 by Pratim Dasupta, Bar Stools by filmmaking duo Varun Bajaj and Neale Hemrajani, Chypre by Anish Dedhia, Int Café night by Adhiraj Bose, and Stuff by Sofian Khan.
There will also be a Student Film Section, a selection of non-competing premieres from India’s three film schools, the Film and TV Institute of Pune, the Whistling Woods of Mumbai, and the Prasad Film and TV Institute of Chennai.
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.
