Between the Honecker Lounge, “Dirty Dancing” and the Berlinale: The Kino International was once the most important premiere cinema in the GDR, is a permanent fixture at the Berlinale and is also known to film fans and tourists for its striking architecture. In November, the house on Karl-Marx-Allee, built in 1963, will be 60 years old.
The listed building of post-war modernism can look back on the history of the GDR – and its end – with one or two unusual anecdotes. Because while the audience was watching “Coming Out” on November 9, 1989 – a gay love story and thus the first film in the GDR with a homosexual theme – the wall fell. A doubly memorable evening for the cinema.
In addition to primarily productions by the GDR film company Defa, the cinema also showed selected Western films, for example the 1987 dance film classic “Dirty Dancing”. It should be a representative building, as Thore Horch from the event department at Kino International says.
General renovation from spring 2024
For example, film premieres were regularly shown in the presence of the state leadership, who even had their own representative room for guests. The windowless “Honecker Lounge,” as it is called today, was often used, but probably not, as Horch explains. The building also housed a library and a youth club. A bunker was also built.
In 1992 the Yorck Cinema Group took over the cinema. Through a huge window front in the Panorama Bar on the first floor, visitors look out onto Café Moscow opposite and Karl-Marx-Allee.
Due to a general renovation, the house will probably be closed next April for around 15 months, as the Yorck cinemas announced. Among other things, a technical renovation is pending. The cinema’s milestone anniversary is to be celebrated with an anniversary program that includes, among other things, an anniversary celebration this Friday with Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth and an open day.
2023-11-09 10:00:35
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