Delegates attend the film festival at Kalidas Rangalaya in Patna on Friday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Dec. 2: The third edition of Patna Film Festival, which began today, could have challenged Silk and her brigade of The Dirty Picture that also hit the cinemas.

Around 200 people turned up at Kalidas Rangalaya for the shows on the first of the three days of the festival, titled Cinema of Resistance. While Silk and Suryakant entertained the masses by gyrating to the peppy tune of Ooh la la…, offbeat films and documentaries appealed to the intellect of the audience at the festival.

The festival started with Kundan Shah’s 1983 cult classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.

Bhola Shankar Pandey, 42, one of the audience members, said he also loved the film. “Right from the first scene to the last one, I kept laughing. It is a great movie. People should surely watch it,” he said.

The other films that will be showcased at the festival are Neecha Nagar, Story of Stuff, Glass, Zoo, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, and Fahrenheit 9/11.

A large percentage of the audience today comprised theatre workers.

U.S. Prasad, a 52-year-old theatre artist, who had come today, said: “Why do you expect that people from different background to come to this festival? Only an educated audience can understand the message of these offbeat films. So, only they will come.”

However Prasad was not completely right to claim that the festival only attracts intellectuals and exclude everyone else.

Anand Kumar Shah, the manager of a city hotel, also turned up today. Asked if he likes watching offbeat films, Shah said: “I was passing by Kalidas Rangalaya, when I saw the promotional poster of the festival. When I came inside the venue, I got to know about the festival. I don’t need to pay for tickets here. So, I have come for a few hours of entertainment. The subject of the film does not matter to me.”

Not all was shiny at the festival. A source claimed that 40 per cent of the audience today were family members and invitees of the organisers.

The co-ordinator of the festival, Abhinav said: “It is true that the members have extended invitations to friends and family. We did this to let more people know about the festival. Message-oriented cinema is yet to gain popularity in Patna. Very few people like offbeat films. So, we had to call up our relatives.”

He, however, also claimed that most of the audience were not invitees.

“Many young people have come for the festival. Our promotion has been successful,” he said.