Hindi
‘Filmfare Lockdown Conversations’ features the biggest names of Bollywood in their candid best
Filmfare, India’s leading entertainment brand, launched Filmfare Lockdown Conversations, a candid video series featuring the biggest and most-popular names in Bollywood. By leveraging the brand’s extensive social media reach of 14 million across all four platforms, the show aims to bring fans closer to A-listers from the industry by giving them a humble insight into the lives of these stars through the free-flowing conversations in this bi-weekly video series.
The show features Filmfare editor and B-town expert Jitesh Pillaai as the host with some of the biggest of Bollywood stars such as Ayushmann Khurrana, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Imtiaz Ali, Shekhar Kapur, Alaya Furniturewala, Janhvi Kapoor, Bhumi Pednekar, Tapsee Pannu and Madhuri Dixit among others in a candid conversation, as they open up about life in the confines of their homes. Streaming across all social media platforms of Filmfare, over a slew of unfiltered, intimate, real and entertaining episodes. Spanning across six weeks, audiences will get to see both, the celebrity and the host, sitting in the comfort of their homes bond over a cup of tea.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Deepak Lamba – CEO, Worldwide Media said, Filmfare Lockdown Conversations sees the brand explore the digital medium and leverage its reach on social media to once again innovate and connect with our audiences in a relevant environment. We hope that, via this candid video series, Filmfare, continues to engage and entertain our audiences in the midst of this current crisis.”
Jitesh Pillaai, Editor, Filmfare said, “In these unprecedented and unforeseen circumstances, we seek to offer our audiences content that is entertaining, engaging and at the same time inspiring. Through Filmfare Lockdown Conversations we will be getting up close and personal with the biggest stars in Bollywood and bring them closer to our viewers. The candid video series will see me open a dialogue with these A Listers where they shall speak about their lockdown lifestyle, their mantra to adjusting to the new normal, among many other interesting aspects and topics.”
From reputed directors to some of the most recognizable faces in B-town; the power-packed line-up of stars in Filmfare Lockdown Conversations will ensure that you see each one of them in a whole new light.
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.
