In 1946, 15 years before Alain Resnais made “Last Year at Marienbad,” one of the world’s earliest film festivals unspooled in the Czech spa towns of Marianske Lazne — aka “Marienbad” — and Karlovy Vary — aka “Carlsbad.”

Tucked in beautiful Bohemia, Karlovy Vary had already made cinema history 50 years before that, in 1896, when a representative of the Lumiere’s pioneering film firm demonstrated the groundbreaking new le cinematographe Lumiere projector, one of a few in the world, at the spa’s popular casino.

These aren’t historical facts intended to impress the reader with the importance of the Karlovy Vary Intl.…