Hindi
Vivek Agnihotri to cast Bachchan and Naseer in his remake of 12 Angry Men
MUMBAI: Vivek Agnihotri, who had earlier directed films like Chocolate (2005) and Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal, has signed Amitabh Bachchan and Naseeruddin Shah for his next film Twelve, a remake of Sidney Lumet‘s 1957 American drama film 12 Angry Men.
The filmmaker is also planning to cast Om Puri, Paresh Rawal, Boman Irani, Pankaj Kapur and Annu Kapoor for the film.
“It‘s a brilliant story, the action of which takes place within the confines of a single room. It‘s a classic play and every time it‘s been made into a film, it has won laurels,” said Agnihotri in a statement. The filmmaker has also conceded that he‘s spoken to every single person he has in mind.
Interestingly, the film also marks the comeback of Ashutosh Gowariker to the acting field. Having started off with Kundan Shah‘s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa in 1993, Gowariker also played a part in the detective series CID.
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.
