The main event

The stars do their tour on the red carpet, the politicians come to get their pictures taken with the stars, and then, of course, there are the movies.

But so much of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival happens on the periphery, whether it be the parties, the distribution dealings, the healing spa waters or the commercial carnival offered by sponsors just outside the festival's heart, the towering, monolithic Hotel Thermal.

On July 5, thunderclouds threatened to send the many ticketless attendees in the parks and outdoor cafés scrambling for shelter under the town's famed Colonnade. But the bad weather seemed to blow over around the time French actress Isabelle Huppert received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding contributions to world cinema.

"I know this town is historically connected to the cinema. Film is a beautiful language which manages to express the irrational within us, and that's why I love it," said Huppert, who earlier this year chaired the Cannes Film Festival Grand Jury.

American John Malkovich was also slated for a Crystal Globe later in the week, and Spaniard Antonio Banderas was to receive the President's Award.

A short walk and a few hot springs across town from the Thermal, crowds gathered outside the Hotel Pupp hoping to catch a glimpse of anybody coming and going.

Czech Miloš Forman drew flashbulbs with his appearance at the opening night red carpet parade. Best known internationally for twice winning an Oscar for Best Director, once in 1975 for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and another for 1984's Amadeus, the director premiered his film A Walk Worthwhile July 4. The movie is a screen version of Forman's jazz opera for the stage and was originally intended for release only on DVD, but will now see theater screens in the weeks following the festival. The DVD comes out in the fall.  

"It's not a standard, but, in contrast to theater, you have the advantage of seeing the actors close up," he said. "It's a kind of moral fairy tale about money's corrupt influence. And it came about in the '60s, when nobody had any money. Now, it's more topical."

An estimated 800 producers, industry wheeler-dealers, directors and distributors will attend the festival this year, but that is par for the course for major film fests.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Karlovy Vary and other major international festivals, whether in Cannes, Venice or Berlin, is its accessibility - the public can just buy tickets and attend films.

The communal nature of the festival led the American magazine Vanity Fair to label it the "Movie Woodstock," and a story about last year's festival in the Los Angeles Times spoke of "a temporary city of some 300 multicolored tents, home to over 1,000 young film nuts." In 2008, the festival drew 145,000 people.

"I go to a lot of films; it was long weekend as well, so we were thinking it was either that or a music festival," said Cillian O'Donoghue, a master's student at Charles University.

While the parties were a "good time," O'Donoghue, who was among the throngs of campers, takes strong opposition to the idea that the festival was easily accessible for the casual moviegoer.

The lines to get tickets, he said, "were ridiculous."

"It is [only] for people who have tickets in advance," he added.

The festival runs through July 11 and is showing 226 films from 64 countries, almost all of which are in English or with English subtitles. There was still plenty of fun on the schedule as of press time, including a concert by Czech musician Jaromír Nohavica July 10.

Even those with a few misgivings about the festival had to admit it wasn't all bad.  

"We were four single guys, and there were lots of pretty girls," O'Donoghue said.

Benjamin Cunningham can be reached at
bcunningham@praguepost.com