Hindi
YRF to co-produce Nicole Kidman-starrer ‘Grace of Monaco’
MUMBAI: Yash Raj Films (YRF) Entertainment has partnered with French filmmaker Pierre-Ange Le Pogam‘s company Stone Angels to produce and finance ‘Grace of Monaco‘ that stars Nicole Kidman.
Directed by Olivier Dahan, ‘Grace of Monaco‘ is a historical drama. The production work on the film will begin this fall in southern France.
YRF Entertainment CEO Uday Chopra said, “Grace of Monaco is the kind of movie that has a perfect blend of talent and sensibility that YRF Entertainment is proud to be a part of. We look forward to a great partnership with Olivier and Pierre-Ange.”
YRF‘s Jonathan Reiman will be the executive producer of the film along with the film‘s writer, Arash Amel.
The movie tells story of the late Princess Grace of Monaco, the former actress Grace Kelly (played by Kidman), and her efforts to make peace between her adopted country Monaco and France.
“When I first read the script written by Arash Amel, I thought it was a great story to tell, with a lot of artistic, historical and emotional potential. This is why I invited Olivier Dahan to become the director because he has this artistic vision,” Le Pogam said. “When Olivier and I met with Nicole Kidman for the first time, we felt immediately she was the right artist to portray Princess Grace. When I then met with Uday, I had the same feeling after our conversation. He was obviously the right partner because of his beautiful vision of the movie.”
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.
