Zoo Palast

The Zoo Palast is West Berlin's most iconic cinema, a listed building whose history reaches back to 1915 when the first picture house opened at this Hardenbergstraße address. The present structure, inaugurated in 1957, served as the main Berlinale competition venue until 1999, hosting four decades of festival glamour at the heart of the city's western centre. After closing in 2010, it was comprehensively renovated and reopened in November 2013 with seven screens, roughly 1,650 wide leather seats, Dolby Atmos sound, and 70mm analog projection capability. Two of its auditoriums are heritage-protected, and every screening begins with a signature light and water show. The Zoo Palast does not merely show films — it stages them, with a grandeur that recalls the age when going to the cinema was an event unto itself.

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