‘THIS is my 30th movie of the festival,” a man sitting behind me at the Cinema Imperial remarked to a companion on the final day of the Montreal World Film Festival.

His voracious appetite for movies was not unusual at the event, which marked its 25th anniversary this year.

The fest in Toronto – which is filled with cell-phone-carrying publicists and other obnoxious industry types, and prides itself on the Hollywood stars it attracts – gets most of the hype.

But movie lovers know that the laid-back gathering in French-speaking Montreal is the Canadian film party for them.

For 12 days ending on Labor Day, Montreal festivalgoers lined up from morning to night to see nearly 400 films from 66 countries on 14 screens.

(The Montreal Gazette estimated attendance at close to 500,000.)

The emphasis was on art-house fare, with Hollywood flicks few and far between.

But that doesn’t mean Montreal was devoid of glitz.

Sophia Loren and Jackie Chan flew in to pick up lifetime-achievement awards.

The presentations and accompanying press conferences were hot tickets, with journalists and fans fighting to catch a glimpse of the stars.

And sexy French actress Emmanuelle Beart, who was president of the jury, kept the paparazzi happy.

But the festival’s selling point was its vast offering of films, a lot of which will never get commercial runs.

Others, like the erotic French drama “Intimacy” and the highly touted Gallic comedy “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain,” already have opening dates.

Still others are due at the New York Film Festival, which debuts Sept. 28.

They include Iranian director Majid Majidi’s “Baran” – which shared the top prize in Montreal – and Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang’s must-see “What Time Is It There?”