Hindi
UTV to release six films in 2012
MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures has released the slate of movies that it is to release in 2012.
To start off, the company will release Ek Main Aur Ek Tu, its co-production with Dharma Productions on 10 February.
The film being directed by Shakun Batra and starring Kareena Kapoor and Imraan Khan, is a light hearted, tragicomedy about a guy in his mid twenties going through a breakdown in his personal as well as work life. Rahul Kapoor loses his job as an architect in Vegas and by a twist of fate he meets Riana Braganza, a quick-witted hairstylist who is everything he isn‘t. Will this friendship with her turn to love?
Following in May would be Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, a co-production of UTV Spotboy and Anurag Kashyap directed by Sameer Sharma. The film starring Kunal Kapoor and Huma Qureshi celebrates the lovable quirks of a Punjabi joint family with its inherent humour, drama, confusion, emotion, and the secret recipe for a famous chicken curry Chicken Khurana that forms the crux of the plot.
Releasing on 15 June will be Rowdy Rathore, a joint venture of UTV Motion Pictures and SLB Productions. The film, directed by Prabhudeva, starring Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha, is a remake of Vikramarkudu, the superhit Telugu film which was also remade in Tamil as Siruthai. The film will see Kumar returning to his original action avatar.
Following in July is Barfii, a UTV Motion Pictures product, directed by Anurag Basu. The film stars Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileyana.
Then there is the Shirish Kunder-directed Joker 3D that releases on 30 August. The film, a co-production of UTV Motion Pictures, Three‘s Company and Hari Om Productions and Shirish Kunder, stars Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha. Akshay Kumar returns to his hometown, a place that‘s so remote and crazy that it‘s not even on the map. And then what follows puts this forgotten little town not just on the country‘s map, but makes it the focus of the entire globe! Aliens!
And the last film on the slate is the Madhur Bhandarkar-directed Heroine. The film, a UTV Motion Pictures and Bhandarkar Entertainment product and starring Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal, is based on the life and times of a superstar heroine from the dream factory we call ‘Bollywood‘. The film is an entertaining, daring, emotional, shocking, glamorous, scandalous behind the scenes account of the reality behind the world of glitz and glamour that our film stars inhabit.
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.
