M07 presents SIGNAL (Screening)

Royal Theatre Tuschinski sits on Reguliersbreestraat in central Amsterdam, between Rembrandtplein and the Munt, on a patch of ground that was once a run down slum district known as the Duvelshoek. Polish born entrepreneur Abraham Tuschinski broke ground in June 1919 and opened the finished building on 28 October 1921 at a cost of around four million guilders. The design, led by Hijman Louis de Jong and later continued by Willem Kromhout, fuses Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Amsterdam School elements into a facade flanked by two towers and covered in ceramic sculptures and leadlight windows. The interior was shaped by the decorative work of Pieter den Besten and Jaap Gidding, whose original wall paintings were later restored after wartime damage. In 2021, a century after its opening, King Willem Alexander granted the building the royal predicate, making it the Koninklijk Theater Tuschinski. Although the venue functions primarily as a cinema, with a total capacity of 1,431 across its screens, it has consistently served as a setting for live performances. Its main auditorium, with its exceptional acoustics and ornate surroundings, has hosted orchestral concerts, jazz evenings and pop shows, and it was the site of the European premiere of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List in 1993. The building underwent extensive restorations between 1998 and 2002 and again from 2019 to 2020, preserving both its architectural fabric and its suitability as a live event space. Pathé, the French cinema group that actually supplied Tuschinski with his first film material back in the 1920s, has owned the theatre since 1996.