KARACHI: The three-day Gandhara Independent Film Festival (GIFF) 2023 kicked off at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) on Friday with a wicked dark Australian comedy trilogy along with six more films, including a classic Pakistani Nadeem and Shabnam starrer from the golden era of the country`s cinema called Aaina.

The three-day festival will showcase 28 films from across the globe, including Pakistan. All the independent films, mostlyshort films, have already been screened in the top film festivals of the world.

The Australian trilogy, directed by Nash Edgerton, comprised Spider, Bear and Shark. All the films had the same main character, Jack, who likes to play weird pranks with his girlfriends who change with every film.

The first one, Spider, has him buying some flowers and chocolates and a card for his girlfriend, Jill, because she is angry at him.

While buying those things, he also buys a little fake spider that he hides behind her car sun visor.

The flowers and card fail to impress her but the chocolates work and she is smiling again. Then when she reaches for a tissue behind the sun visor, the fake spider falls in her lap and she screeches to a halt and jumps out of the car to be hit by another. But that doesn`t end it. There is a scary surprise in storefor Jack too.The second one, Bear, has Jack again up to his old tricks. He puts on a bear costume that is too good to be a costume and goes into the woods to scare his new girlfriend, Emel, who is cycling to work through the forest on her birthday. She is so scared that she falls down from a hilly part. Then when he reaches her to help, and tells her it was him only, and not a real bear, someone with a shotgun shoots him from behind, thinking that he is in fact a real bear.

In the third one, Shark, Jack finds his match in Sophie, who enjoys his pranks and has plenty up her sleeve, too. The couple gets married and is on its honeymoon on a boat when Jack finds a shark`s fin to wear on his back before diving into the sea.

Sophie stops him and convinces him to go swimming with her and some friends without that fin, which he does before making some excuse to return to the boat. Sophieknows that he will come back wearing the fake shark fin because she knows him too well. Unfortunately, a real shark finds her before him. She sees the fin coming towards her but thinks it is Jack.

Earlier, while talking about films and film festivals, Napa chief executive officer Junaid zuberi said that films could change people`s perspectives and inspire them.

`The film that is a combination of visual and auditory elements is a natural extension of the performing arts,` he said.

`By organising and promoting events, such as the Gandhara Independent Film Festival, Napa also provides students and the wider public with a platform to explore the world of cinema. Napa believes in the power of interdisciplinary arts education, and film festivals like this one serve as a bridge that connects various forms of artistic impression.

`Films are a mirror to society, a canvasfor dreams and a way for change. Films reflect our hopes and fears and document the human experience in all its complexity.

They evoke emotions, can educate, mobilise and drive conversations about issues that matter,` he said.

The producer of the Gandhara Independent Film Festival, Uzair Surhio, said that they started off in 2020 with Pakistan`s first digital festival but expanded and collaborated with Napa last year to turn it into a physical film festival.

`This year, again, we are honoured to collaborate with Napa and screen independent cinema from Pakistan and the rest of the world,` he said.

`Along with the films, we will also have a film-making workshop, panel discussions and much more,` he informed before thanking the Sindh Board of Film Censors and the Culture Department for coming onboard and clearing alltheir selections.