Sundance Cameo Spa

Gritty Karlovy Vary Film Festival ends with cheerful gorefest

An exhausting nine-day whirlwind of films, parties, celebrities, scorching sunshine and sudden rainstorms drew to a close this week here in Karlovy Vary, the fairy-tale spa town nestling among heavily wooded hills in the north-western corner of the Czech Republic. Judi Dench, John Turturro and other stars have already passed through the town's annual film festival to pick up awards and promote movies.

It may not have the worldwide media profile of Cannes or Sundance, but Karlovy Vary is one of Europe's oldest and most elegant film festivals, growing in critical stature over the two decades since the former Czechoslovakia emerged from more than 40 years of Soviet communist domination. The ghosts of fallen empires are everywhere here, from the hulking Cold War concrete edifice of the Hotel Thermal, which serves as the festival's hub, to the palatial theatres and sumptuous screening rooms scattered throughout the town's picturesque historical centre.

This year's festival showcased almost 200 films from more than 50 countries, a quarter of them world premieres. More than 120,000 tickets were also sold to a youthful and palpably keen audience. Every screening I attended was busy, even for obscure films, and most were full. If you ever fear that the serious-minded film fan is an endangered species, just come to Karlovy Vary in July. The enthusiasm is infectious.

Films from the Middle East were scattered through the programme, including the winner of the festival's biggest prize, the Crystal Globe. The director Yossi Madmoni's Restoration by the Palestinian-Israeli director Sameh Zoabi, an agreeably sunny family comedy about the everyday struggles of middle-class Palestinians living inside Israel. Funding for Zoabi's film came from Qatar and Belgium, but also from Israel's ministry of culture, which seems odd, given the story's core message about ingrained anti-Arab prejudice in Israeli society. "It's very simple," the director told me at his packed festival premiere. "They didn't read the script!"