The temperatures were only just above zero on the evening of February 10, 1990, when German-German history was made at the Kosmos Cinema: The Berlinale came to the GDR. After its start in West Berlin, the Berlin Film Festival celebrated its second opening to roaring applause – this time in the Eastern part of the city. This is how the Kosmos Cinema came to its role of hosting stars from Hollywood. And the lead actors perhaps drank Rotkäppchen brand sparkling wine for the first time.
Hollywood stars Sally Field and Julia Roberts came to the Berlinale with their new film "Steel Magnolias." An appointment with the press brought them to the Brandenburg Gate. There they stood on the Berlin Wall, which here measured a width of three metres, and posed next to a GDR border soldier. A few weeks later the demolition of the border wall would start here. But at this point Berlin was still divided and all guests of the Berlinale who wanted to visit one of the three East Berlin festival cinemas had to formally enter the GDR to do so.
Not only the crossing of the border marked the German division during this Film Festival. The programme committee made sure that the Berlinale 1990 showed so-called Verbotsfilme from the GDR. Productions that were either never shown or banned directly after their premiere were called Verbotsfilme, Kellerfilme or Regalfilme, in English banned film, cellar films or shelf films. During this first East-West Berlinale, they were shown especially in the cinemas of West Berlin.
While the audience in the West Berlin Delphi Filmpalast was listening to a podium discussion about the prohibition culture of the SED dictatorship, the Kosmos Cinema on the same day showed the then current GDR production "Coming out." The film with its homosexual main character is considered a milestone of East German film history. The director had to fight for its approval for years. The film premiere on November 9, 1989 - not far away, at the Kino International - coincided with the fall of the Wall.
Now, in February 1990, the jury selected "Coming Out" as one of the festival’s award winners, thereby, according to the unanimous opinion, also honouring the historical circumstances, namely the peaceful opening of the border. It was only logical that this Berlinale in East Berlin rolled out the red carpet for its guests from Hollywood, which was otherwise reserved for political celebrities at Schönefeld Airport.
