This is an exciting time of the year for the film industry and its enthusiasts as the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) kicks off, ready to show the industry’s top films. Normal times would see the red carpet laid out to carry national and international stars to premieres across the German capital, and Colt, together with the technology team of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), would be behind the scenes, transferring films to packed cinemas at a rate of up to 10 Gbps via the Colt IQ Network. Over the course of the ten day festival, Colt would have transferred around one petabyte of data from a total of 2,500 screenings of over 1,100 films.
Plot Twist: Berlinale take two
Yet this year defied every directorial order and the 71st Berlinale was faced with the challenge of rethinking the film festival. So in 2021 it’s taking place as a two-part event. The five-day virtual Industry Event for the press and those in the film business will start on 1st March, alongside the film selection and competition. Three months later, from 9th to 20th June, the wider Berlinale audience can enjoy the films alongside their creators, with numerous screenings across Berlin as part of the Summer Special.
Colt has been the Digital Cinema Partner of Berlinale for more than ten years, providing high bandwidth network services and Internet access to all 19 festival venues, made up of 50 film screens. This year, Colt will again provide connectivity to Berlinale servers and transmit the films that feature in the 2021 edition of the festival.
Innovations for the digital age of cinema
Berlinale stepped into the digital age of film in 2010, when Colt first connected the festival’s eight venues to its fibre optic network; just in time for the world premiere of the restored version of the film classic “Metropolis”. Since then, the festival has continued to partner with Colt and other telecom and technology providers to build the Digital Heart of the Berlinale and create a perfect digital cinema experience for viewers.
Colt connectivity supports the Berlinale throughout the event. From the pre-selection of film entries to the festival screenings, the technical team have full control over the network via Colt On Demand. Powered by Software Defined Networking (SDN), On Demand allows Ove Sander, Technical Director of Digital Cinema at Berlinale and his team to flex network bandwidth up and down by in a matter of minutes via a portal, adjusting individual connections in the network either manually or automatically. As soon as a certain threshold of bandwidth usage set by the team is exceeded, On Demand intelligently provides more bandwidth without the need for manual configuration.
In 2020, the Berlinale moved its central film management application to the cloud, making the complex process of organising and distributing festival entries to the screen more simple, effective and secure. Using Dedicated Cloud Access (DCA) from Colt, the Berlinale technical team access their Cloud PoP in Frankfurt via a reliable and dedicated connection running on the Colt IQ Network.
Colt understands that connectivity matters and it’s vision is to become the most customer-oriented business in the industry. 2021 marks 25 years of Colt in Germany, powering enterprises’ digital transformations across the country, just as Colt continues to power the digital heart of the Berlinale each year.
You can find out more about Berlinale 2021 and how you can participate in the festival here.
Colt Technology Services
02 March 2021
Recent posts
Understanding the challenges of building digital infrastructure
Digital Infrastructure Insights: Elevating the customer experience
