The oldest operating cinema in Germany has been on the verge of succumbing to the gentrification tsunami that is devastating certain Berlin districts. Moviemento, the name of this institution founded in 1907 on the first floor of a building on Kottbusser Damm, the populous avenue that separates the neighborhoods of Kreuzberg and Neukölln, was a real estate treat in one of the hearts of tourism. hipster. Only a combination of citizen response and media scandal has saved it from becoming another batch of luxury apartments.
The story dates back to 2007, when the current owners, Iris Praefke and Wulf Sörgel, took over the business. “We both worked in film distribution. Moviemento was bankrupt at that time, due to poor management, but we saw that it had a lot of potential,” recalls Sörgel sitting at one of the tables in the bar of the establishment, covered with posters of classic films, where, in addition to popcorn, they serve wines. and beers that can be consumed within its three rooms, with capacity for 104, 67 and 62 people.
From 2007 to 2018, the couple had four different landlords. The last of them decided to get rid of his company, to which all of his properties were linked, without notifying him. One autumn morning in 2019, Praefke and Sörgel were visited by two agents from Delta Vivum, their new landlord, a subsidiary of the real estate giant Deutsche Wohnen, which, according to 2022 data, owns more than 110,000 properties in Berlin. His idea was to sell the 600 square meters that Moviemento occupies for two million euros. “When I got the offer I realized that no cultural space was going to be able to cope with that amount. What they wanted was for housing to be built,” explains Sörgel. “But we decided to fight. We contacted everyone we knew: artists, politicians and the press. And that became a great international media campaign. At Deutsche Wohnen they were scared, because it caught them by surprise. They did not expect such a strong response. They didn’t know that this was the oldest cinema in the country. Well, they didn’t even know it was a cinema!
In the face of popular pressure, which included a campaign crowdfunding with which they raised 140,000 euros, the company gave in and opted for an agreement. That’s when the pandemic hit and everything stopped. To make matters worse, in 2021 Deutsche Wohnen was acquired by Vonovia, with which it now forms the largest real estate conglomerate in Europe, which was dismissing the employees with whom it had negotiated. “We were left without interlocutors, except for a woman who was not on the board of directors, who took charge of our case,” Sörgel recalls. Thanks to her, a few months ago he and her partner closed a purchase agreement, investing the proceeds with the crowdfunding, all his savings and some loans from friends. “It was a very low figure for the current market,” he points out, without revealing the exact amount.
Thus a small cultural emblem of the capital was saved (for example, Tom Tykwer, the director of Run Lola Run or from the series Babylon Berlin, was head of programming there during the ’80s and ’90s), which now hosts more than a dozen alternative festivals (such as the Xposed Queer Film Festival) and independent film premieres. Sörgel issues a final warning: “Today one of the main challenges for any artistic institution is facing rental prices. That is why all types of spaces are disappearing, whether theaters, cinemas or concert halls. There will come a time when we will have nowhere to go.”
