Hindi
Yash Raj Films makes a major breakthrough in Japan
MUMBAI: Japan is a territory that doesn‘t have a presence of Indian cinema till now however this might soon change what with the Yash Raj Films making a breakthrough through its tie- up with Japan‘s oldest major movie studio Nikkatsu Corporation.
The Japanese studio has released the Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif historic blockbuster, Ek Tha Tiger, directed by Kabir Khan on 7 March with a grand premiere in Tokyo.
The premiere will be followed by the release of Yash Chopra‘s Jab Tak Hai Jaan that stars Shahrukh Khan, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma later this summer.
A press conference was held yesterday in Osaka which was attended by Ek Tha Tiger director Kabir Khan, YRF Overseas head Avtar Panesar, and YRF Production head Aashish Singh.
The conference was hosted by the Consul General of India Vikas Swarup (also the well-known writer of Q&A – a book which went on to be made in to Slumdog Millionaire) and attended by 30 representatives of leading media outlets, including TV crews from MBS and KTV.
The Consul General along with Kabir Khan and the esteemed guests of honour, touched upon the vibrant Indian film Industry and its emergence as a major export from India and how the arrival of Indian Films is extremely thrilling for the Japanese people and the 26,000 Indians that live there. Kabir Khan spoke about how the film was made, the stars and the locations used in the film and his desire to shoot in Japan in the near furture.
Nikkatsu EVP international ops Akifumi Sugihara spoke about his company‘s commitment to Bollywood and his faith in YRF‘s content.
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.
