Hindi
Zoya Akhtar to pay tribute to Bollywood in next
MUMBAI: After being lauded for her last film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Zoya Akhtar will be working on two assignments: one would be her next feature film and the other a 25-minute short film that will pay a tribute to the Indian film industry that is to complete its century next year.
Others who are contemplating to pay a homage to Bollywood in its centenary year include R.Balki, known for his films Cheeni Kum and Paa and Dibakar Banerjee, known for his film LSD and the up for release Shanghai.
“We’re really proud of her. She’s been burning the midnight oil to give the short film its desired shape and colour. It would be unfair if my partner Farhan (producer-director-actor-singer-writer Farhan Akhtar) or I gave away the actual content of her movie. But we can promise that it’s a beautiful film that pays tribute to one of the biggest and oldest film industries in the world. It’s a beautiful story woven around filmmaking,” producer Ridesh Sidhwani of Excel Entertainment said.
Meanwhile, the production house is working on a couple of films of which one each would be directed by Akhtar, Abhishek Kapoor and Abhinay Deo. The announcement would be made shortly.
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.
