Another edition of the Kolkata film festival has come and gone with a package of attractions that never appeared to have dimmed after a continuous run for 23 years. This is regarded as a film city – one that spawned the film society movement and saw Renoir shooting near the Hooghly nearly seven decades ago. It is part of the cinematic heritage that was celebrated last week through a variety of events ranging from an adda zone to exciting glimpses from the past.

If some were thrilled to hear contemporary actors debating whether stardom or content determined the success of a film, others thronged the Gaganendra gallery to observe the Mitchell camera with which Satyajit Ray had shot Pather Panchali. Public enthusiasm has grown in recent years because there is something for everyone. The massive turnout at the Netaji Indoor Stadium on the opening day may not have had any connection with the Iranian film that was shown after the stars from Bollywood had left the scene. But it certainly did a lot to take the festival to the masses.

The traffic jam from Akashvani Bhavan to Strand Road is a regular feature during Tests and ODIs at the Eden Gardens. Now the film festival captures the same kind of hysteria even for those brief moments when Shah Rukh Khan bravely attempted a few lines of Bengali or stunning images of the stars were flashed on giant screens. No one really kept track of how films from Turkey, Iran or Poland were received in off-beat venues like the Star and Navina that normally screened deshi films. What mattered was that Nandan was bursting with an animated crowd for nearly every show – the aisles providing seating space to late-comers and long queues being formed before every show. Students thronged the campus in large numbers and the colourful decorations provided the appropriate backdrop for photo opportunities.

The presence of young people was conspicuous largely because the festival had launched a section on documentary and short fiction films that saw aspiring youngsters trying to grab one of the attractive prizes in this section. The limited number of faces from other parts of the country and abroad was more than compensated by the bright young faces that seemed committed to making a career in the world of films. Fortunately, security was not so tight as to make it difficult for delegates wanting to hop from one theatre to another in the vicinity.

It was the variety of films that kept drawing cineastes who had to keep themselves updated with what was happening in remote areas of India as much as the work of newly discovered masters from Europe and Asia. Clearly it wasn’t possible to get a taste of everything one may have planned at the outset. But after all these years, festival regulars know that a rare opportunity to see a Godard film that hasn’t been released as yet is as rewarding as observing Chhabi Biswas in Headmaster.

Managing time between classics and contemporary hits is an art that has been perfected by festival buffs who include academics, office-goers, professionals and students for whom this is a much awaited cocktail of art and entertainment. The curtain came down on the event on Friday but only with an assurance of more excitement next November.