Berlinale Palast

Source: Berlinale

Berlinale Palast

The Berlinale is to create a new screening venue and a festival hub as part of a bid to revitalise its Potsdamer Platz home.

Both venues will be close to the main Berlinale Palast and the CinemaxX screening cinema and in walking distance from the European Film Market at Gropius Bau.

The Berlinale said the new venues would help compensate for the loss of around 150,000 screening seats in Potzdamer Platz in recent years and would help create a more walkable festival.

The Stage Bluemax Theater at nearby Marlene-Dietrich-Platz will be adapted as a screening venue for the next edition with a capacity of approximately 500 seats. The venue will become the home of the newly created Perspectives first feature competition, as well as hosting key premieres from other Berlinale sections.

HUB75 will be the temporary festival hub and will also be built at Marlene-Dietrich-Platz. It will host free morning talks and events for public audiences, as well as a networking space for industry and filmmaker guests.

Screening space has declined around Potzdamer Platz since the CineStar closed its multiplex in the Sony Centre - previously one of the key venues for festival and European Film Market screenings. Last year the CinemaxX Berlin reduced its seating capacity.

Last year, there were screenings at the CineStar Cubix on Alexanderplatz which caused dismay among some European Film Market attendees for its distance to the EFM and Potsdamer Platz.

“Since the closure and redevelopment of key cinemas in 2022, Berlinale has missed some of its former presence and buzz around our centre in Potsdamer Platz. These new venues are part of our longer term plans to recreate a more readily walkable festival heart, and inject additional energy and visibility back into this central hub,” said Berlinale festival director Tricia Tuttle.

Tuttle pioneered the use of temporary venues in her previous job as artistic director of the London Film Festival, delivering a purpose-built pop-up venue at Embankment Gardens, which formed part of the LFF venue mix from 2016 to 2019.

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