The red carpet; the bright lights; Hollywood stars accepting their Golden Bear of Honour Award. Every year, the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) invites film-lovers to marvel at the latest cinematic achievements in widescreen format in a glamorous atmosphere

But it’s not just the film stars on the screen displaying a world-class performance. Behind the scenes, digital infrastructure is also running at full speed to make it all possible. A reliable network infrastructure plays an important role in the delivery, distribution and screening of films in cinemas. Across 11 days, a petabyte of film data is transmitted to 19 venues and over 40 auditoriums to showcase 2,000 screenings.

The digital heart of the Berlinale

Colt has been supporting the festival as its digital cinema partner for more than 15 years, providing state-of-the-art fibre optic network technologies. All of the primary venues are connected to Colt’s network node in Berlin via a star-shaped fibre optic network consisting of 10 Gbit/s and 1 Gbit/s connections. Two 10 Gbit/s lines connect the node with the Berlinale Film Office at Potsdamer Platz, forming the digital heart of the Berlinale. As an early adopter in the festival landscape, the international film festival has now digitalised all central processes relating to film screenings thanks to the loyal support of its partners.

The Berlinale as an innovation hub

Colt also uses its partnership with the film festival to drive technological development within its own network. Since 2015, a 10-gigabit connection enables uploading film data in various file formats directly to the servers of the Berlinale. Film studios from the USA in particular use this service, as it saves valuable time when applying necessary fine-tuning in the lead up to the event. The journey for a package of film data from Hollywood to Berlin now only takes 20 minutes, saving considerable time compared to former techniques.

In 2022, Colt tested a quantum-encrypted connection in the festival network together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich Hertz Institute, HHI and ADVA for the first time, using a combination of two different encryption technologies – QKD with AES.

Adapting to network requirements

One of the key innovations utilised with the Berlinale is Colt’s Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) Colt On Demand solution. This allows the Berlinale’s technical team to scale connection bandwidth in real time as and when they need it.

Launch the Colt On Demand interactive demo

The technology was initially used in 2023 in combination with its Bandwidth Boost function to deliver film contributions from Asia via a hub in Singapore. Filmmakers from the APAC region were able to upload their work directly to the Berlinale server in a data centre in Singapore. From there, Colt established an end-to-end on-demand connection between the data centre and the network node in Berlin via an ethernet connection, then using Bandwidth Boost to transfer the data. This allowed the bandwidth capacity to be scaled flexibly between 10 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s according to demand.

For the 75th Berlinale in 2025, and for the first time, Colt is providing the festival with its innovative Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) IP service based on a NaaS connection, thus creating the necessary internet access to broadcast the opening gala live in cinemas in seven other German cities. Film fans in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Leipzig, Munich and Stuttgart will be able to enjoy the flair of the festival in the comfort of their home city. A screening of the opening film ‘The Light’ by Tom Tykwer afterwards completes the film experience.

Recent Colt NaaS Updates

Launch the Colt On Demand interactive demo