IL KINO

IL KINO: A Cinema in an Old Bakery in Neukölln

Nansenstraße is located in the Reuterkiez, between Schönleinstraße and Hermannplatz, a quiet residential street without through traffic. In 2012, Carla Molino, Daniel Wuschansky, and Kristian S. Pålshaugen stumbled upon an improvised football broadcast in a vacant bakery here. It was projected onto the raw wall of the former oven, and the audience sat on beer benches. Carla Molino, who had been part of a self-organized film club in Rome, saw a cinema in it. After two years of renovation, IL KINO opened on November 1, 2014, making it Berlin’s first newly established independent cinema in twenty-nine years.

Since then, over a thousand films have been shown. The venue has been invited to the Berlinale, hosts festivals and premieres, and screens works by filmmakers from the neighborhood, often for the very first time.

Why You Cry Better Here Than At Home

The program features international arthouse cinema, festival films, and documentaries, consistently in original versions with German or English subtitles. A ticket costs 11 to 12 Euros, reduced 9 to 10 Euros; for films over two hours, an additional two Euros are charged. If you can’t decide, let the cinema choose for you and simply watch what’s currently showing. For a bad evening, that’s exactly the right amount of decision-making.

However, the real difference from a large cinema lies before and after the screening. The venue includes a café with a bar, where you can also sit without watching a film, offering homemade Italian cuisine, coffee, and wine. The founding team explicitly did not want to build a cinema from which you are pushed out the back exit after the credits. You are also allowed to bring all of this into the auditorium. Pasta, a glass of wine, and a sad film in a dark room full of strangers together make for a surprisingly good evening.