Hindi
Filamchi will now be available on Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, GTPL, SITI – ICNCL & SITI Network
strategic alliance with leading Direct-To-Home (DTH) and leading cable service providers in the country. Under these new partnerships, the premium Bhojpuri channel on boards Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, GTPL and SITI – ICNCL & SITI Network, giving users of the respective platforms access to the channel’s exciting movie library.
Filamchi can now be watched on Tata Sky at channel number 1114, on Airtel Digital TV at channel number 665, on GTPL Hathway at channel number 277, on SITI (ICNCL) at channel number 219 and on SITI Network at channel number 453. The pay channel can be subscribed for a nominal charge of Rs. 0.25 (excluding taxes) across platforms. Filamchi is also available on Darsh Digital at channel number 187.
Targeted towards the Bhojpuri speaking audiences in the country, Filamchi brings a vast range of titles across genres to entertain and engage diverse movie buffs. The channel hosts an extensive collection of Bhojpuri films, including blockbusters featuring the industry’s biggest superstars Nirahua, Khesari Lal Yadav, Pawan Singh, Arvind Akela, Yash Mishra, Chintu Pandey, and legends like Ravi Kishan and Manoj Tiwari.
Commenting on the recent partnerships, Filamchi strategy VP Tarun Talreja said,“Filamchi was designed to be accessible to Bhojpuri fans across the country through a robust distribution plan. Partnering with two of the leading DTH service providers, Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV, and leading cable service providers GTPL and ICNCL, augments our reach strategy, enabling us to bring our latest offering to a wide base of audiences in the country.”
Apart from Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, GTPL and SITI – ICNCL and SITI Network, Filamchi is available on leading multi-system operators in Bihar and Jharkhand.
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.
