With cinemas in Berlin closed for the foreseeable future, a new initiative born out of lockdown is bringing the movie theatre to people’s homes instead.
We miss the cinema. The smell of hot buttered popcorn, the first gulp of syrupy cola that passes through our salty lips, and watching larger-than-life stories on the big screen. While we have to do without the full cinema experience for now, residents of Berlin are enjoying a taste of the real deal through Windowflicks, a film project that brings the joy of cinema to life during this unprecedented time.
In response to restrictions imposed by social distancing, several neighborhoods across the city are inviting residents to cozy up on their balconies, in gardens, courtyards, or by their windows to watch films projected onto firewalls of neighboring buildings at the so-called facadekinos (facade cinema). Film programs are provided by the arthouse cinema group Yorck, and free popcorn is being distributed in some communities through local businesses like Knalle Popcorn.
“Our idea was to demonstrate that people do not need to take refuge on digital screens; they can open their windows and watch a movie with their neighbors,” said Olaf Karkhoff, director of MetaGrey, a Berlin-based architecture firm supporting the Windowflicks project.
To participate, movie-lovers need to email Windowflicks to express their interest and must live in an apartment block where at least 20 windows face a blank wall. While most films are subtitled to avoid disturbing those who do not wish to watch, some have been aired with powerful sound systems once the entire neighborhood or apartment block is on board.
Organizers offer screenings for free, although donations are encouraged to support a crowdfunding campaign called Fortsetzung Folgt, which aims to raise money for struggling independent and arthouse cinemas. “The Berlin cinema landscape is one of the most diverse in the world, with a program as colorful as the city itself. The existence of the Berlin program cinemas is threatened by the current creative break,” MetaGrey stated. “We would like to contribute to securing the livelihood of Berlin’s program cinemas and therefore support the campaign.”
Italians are enjoying a similar experience with the social media campaign #CinemaDaCasa, which features movies projected onto building facades in Rome every evening at 10pm, screening everything from classics to family films and feel-good favorites. In Paris, the closed La Clef cinema is projecting movies onto the wall of an adjacent apartment building, while in Lithuania, an empty airport has been transformed into a drive-in theatre.
Meanwhile, in Cork, Ireland, one man has turned his residential street into an open-air cinema by projecting old films onto the side of his house so that neighbors can watch from their front gardens. Additionally, the soundtrack is broadcast to their radios.
