The Berlin Film Festival will occupy two new venues across the German capital during next year’s edition.
The festival announced today that it will use Stage Bluemax Theater at Marlene-Dietrich-Platz as a new premiere screening venue. The festival said that once adapted for the event, the venue will offer a seating capacity of around 500. The venue will host screenings across the entire festival. The new venue will also serve as the home of the newly created Perspectives first feature competition.
Across the way, but still on Marlene-Dietrich-Platz, the festival has said it will erect Berlinale HUB75, a temporary hub for festival operations. The festival has said HUB75 will host a series of free morning talks and events during the festival and provide a networking space for industry and filmmaker guests.
“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,” Berlinale head Tricia Tuttle said this morning in a statement. “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.”
The Berlinale estimates that it has lost around 150,000 screening seats at Potsdamer Platz due to the closure of multiple key screens in the area.
Next year’s Berlin Film Festival runs February 13–23. Veteran filmmaker Todd Haynes will head the competition jury. The festival will mark Tuttle’s first edition at the helm. Tuttle replaced the festival’s former dual directors Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek. Tuttle was last head of the BFI’s London Film Festival.