Hindi
Vinod Chopra Films ties up with Talenthouse
MUMBAI: In its quest to find out a screenwriting talent to work with it from among the country‘s vast budding screenwriters, Vinod Chopra Films, makers of Parinda, the Munnabhai series and 3 Idiots has tied up with Talenthouse India for the same.
Speaking on the initiative, Vinod Chopra Films‘ CEO Sameer Rao said, “Our filmography is testimony to three decades of commitment to achieving excellence in cinema. We believe that the starting point for every great film is in an outstanding story.
“We are entering into this initiative, in collaboration with Talenthouse India, to discover new screenwriting talent who will have the potential to contribute to the creation and development of our brand of cinema.”
It may be remembered that the production house was instrumental in bringing the likes of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Rajkumar Hirani, Abhijat Joshi, Boman Irani, Vidya Balan, Shantanu Moitra among many others in the limelight.
Averred Talenthouse India CEO Arun Mehra, “The internet is buzzing with creativity and talent. Talenthouse is a platform that looks to source this talent and bring it to the right audience. Vidhu Vinod Chopra has always backed creative excellence and this collaboration with Talenthouse will help him identify that genius from the millions of aspirants.”
The submission deadline for this hunt is 22 January. The voting for the entries will begin from 23 January while the winner will be announced on 15 February.
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.
