After more than 80 years, the medium of film has changed radically: Cinema has gone DIGITAL! Since May 2013, the Metropol has also been fully digitized.
But let's take a look back: the original auditorium - destroyed in the war during a screening with numerous fatalities and rebuilt in 1949 - once had over 800 seats. It opened in 1940 with a Nazi propaganda film. The reopening in 1949 was more peaceful: “Mother Heart” with Olivia DeHavilland. In the 1950s, the Metropol, together with its sister theater “Atrium” on Grafenberger Allee, was the home of “Heimatfilme” and its “Förstern vom Silbersee”. Premieres also took place here: Marianne Koch, for example, came to the Metropol for the first performance of “Der Klosterjäger”. There were also live performances in those days, for example by Helmuth Zacharias with his jazz quintet.
The cinema was demolished in 1965. The cinema that was built afterwards had 199 seats. After years of vacancy, it opened in 1972 as a repertory cinema with occasional premieres. In 1979, Udo Heimansberg took over and turned the Metropol into an arthouse cinema. Until the late 1980s, it was mainly frequented by students and was characterized by its program: legendary were the film nights with seven Star Trek episodes or all Starship Orion episodes with up to 14 hours running time (!) and Blues Brothers orgies, Monty Python, Woody Allen, Sergio Leone and post-screenings. But also small, fine premieres such as “Eraserhead” by David Lynch. In the 1990s, the program continued with 70mm and major film epics such as “Ben Hur” and “Lawrence of Arabia”. First screenings were added to the program and shortly afterwards two special expansions: A second movie theater, the Phantom, and the cinema café “Playtime” were added in 1992.
In the meantime, the Metropol has established itself as a first-run cinema and is rewarded annually for its outstanding program by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Filmstiftung NRW.
