When father-and-son team Thomas and Julian Rüttgers were creating their new six-screen cinema in the German town of Monheim am Rhein, they wanted a name that summed up the feeling they hoped it would inspire in audiences. Julian, 28, came up with Emotion Kino. “For me, it was about creating a place to connect people, a room for culture and to inspire new emotions,” he explains.
“I was not happy about the name when I first heard it,” recalls his father Thomas, 62. “‘What a shitty name,’ I thought.” After a few days of reflection and conversation, however, Thomas was won over. “Now I love this name. People realise their emotions here. It’s a cinema but it’s about more than cinema.”
Others clearly agree. Emotion Kino was presented with the International Cinema Technology Association (ICTA) best new-build cinema award on the eve of this month’s CineEurope convention in Barcelona (June 16-19). The judges praised its high-end design, boutique character and cutting-edge technology, and highlighted its role as a vibrant community cinema in the heart of Monheim am Rhein, near Düsseldorf in northwest Germany.
Cinema runs through the Rüttgers’ blood. Thomas’s great uncle was a theatre architect, and his father a cinema systems integrator. Thomas joined the family business in 1987, selling to XDC in 2012, which later became Cinemanext, the largest exhibition services company in Europe. After the sale, Thomas branched out as an exhibitor, refurbishing a three-screen cinema in Mettmann in 2016, and then a two-screen cinema in Ratingen – both are towns near Düsseldorf. Julian ran the Mettmann site and helped with the Ratingen renovation.
The six-screen Monheim am Rhein cinema, which opened last year within a redeveloped shopping centre, represents a big step up for the Rüttgers not just in size but also for being a new build. From the start they sought to create something different from a regular multiplex, taking inspiration from Thomas’s travels as a systems integrator.
“Asia is far ahead in terms of cinemas than Europe,” he says, while also pointing to boutique groups in the UK such as Everyman. In Germany, the premium boutique cinema concept remains relatively rare.
Julian, meanwhile, was keen to move away from the “1990s design” template of the multiplexes, and wanted to attract the interest of younger audiences. “We are surrounded by multiplexes. We wanted to differentiate from them,” he says.
Featured presentations
The pair have invested $3.4m (€3m) in Emotion Kino, which features a striking foyer and 570 seats across six auditoriums, each one with a different design and lighting. They range from a high-spec 177-seat room with a Cinity projection system, Dolby Atmos surround sound and motion seating to a 33-seat room that is often used for children’s birthdays or smaller events, and comes with customisable LED strips.
Julian describes screen six, meanwhile, as a “living room”. Its 56 seats are all sofas, and it is designed to evoke the feeling of sitting in a library with bookshelves along the walls.
For the build, they worked with Deutsche Theaterbau for planning and execution, Quadrat P Raum + Licht for design, and ECCO Cine Supply and Service as technology partners. Notably, Quadrat P Raum + Licht specialises in restaurant design. A key aim was to give the cinema personality and soul, says Julian. Each room is designed to feel unique, partly through the use of bold colours and clever lighting.
Both say the design and technological specifications are important, but so too are the little things. “Having clean restrooms, open-minded staff and a comfortable concession area are more important than having a PLF [premium large format],” notes Thomas.
The cinema offers a mix of Hollywood, European and event cinema as well as private hires. To foster a sense of community, occasions such as Kinovino (wine tasting plus a movie) are popular. There is a monthly screening for older audiences with coffee and cake, and a knitting group that meets to watch films.
The Rüttgers’ passion for their cinema is clear, in particular when it comes to engaging and interacting with the audiences. “We don’t claim to be professional [exhibitors]. But we love cinema and we are hungry to do a great job,” says Thomas.
And they are doing something right. As their conversation with Screen concludes, Thomas prepares to welcome the head of Germany’s Cineplex chain, who has come for a tour, the latest in a number of executives to travel to Monheim am Rhein to see their innovative – and now award-winning – new cinema.
No comments yet