The ferry takes just two cars, and the crossing is barely a mile, but yesterday the good ship Cromarty Rose became, for just 88 minutes, the smallest drive-in cinema in the world. That was how long it took to screen the classic 1950s Ealing comedy The Maggie - about a clapped-out Highland puffer - for an audience consisting of four car-borne passengers and two others, crammed in behind the wheelhouse, with barely enough room for two cars, a couch, a standard lamp, and a digital projector that beamed the film onto a 20ft by 50ft (6m by 15m) screen, tied to the vessel's bulkhead.

The screening served a double purpose: to make a bid for The Guinness Book of Records (it failed on a technicality) and to launch next month's Cromarty Film Festival, which will be attended by, amongst others, the TV presenter Kirsty Wark, and film director David Mackenzie.

“It was bizarre,” said the festival's co-organiser, David Newman. “I'm still blue with cold, but I think it was a success. The crossing normally takes about 15 minutes, so we just sort of went around in circles until the movie was over. But we had to have three goes at docking, which made the whole thing a bit like a scene out of The Maggie itself.”

Since the movie tells the story of an ancient steamboat in desperate need of funds that is mistakenly hired by a rich American tycoon to transport a precious cargo out to the Western Isles, with all the attendant possibilities of hard-drinking Highlanders and naive foreigners, the general view was that it was the perfect drive-in movie for floating passengers.

“We wanted a sea-themed film, but we didn't want to frighten the audience, so we decided against Jaws or Titanic in the end,” said film director Don Coutts, who helps run the festival.

He added that he would be “very surprised” if there was a smaller drive-in cinema anywhere in the world.

“We tried to register it with The Guinness Book Of Records as the smallest, but unfortunately because it's not permanent that wasn't possible.”

Yesterday's showing was a one-off, since the Cromarty Rose's crossings in winter-time tend to be somewhat irregular due to the weather. However, Mr Newman conceded that public interest might convince the organisers to do it again if the seas are calm enough.

The festival, which runs from December 5 to 7, will show some 30 films, interspersed with talks and discussions. By coincidence, one of the original cast still lives in the town, and the lamp which was used on The Maggie is owned by a local Cromarty man.

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