A Night at the Movies

Mats Kullander

It's Saturday night at Bergakungen.  Three anti-aircraft spotlights sweep slowly across the night sky as they might at an Oscars gala.  The concessions line snakes through the foyer; the air is filled with expectation, excited chatter and the smell of popcorn.  By the time the credits fade on the evening's final film, over 6,500 people have had their tickets torn, sunken comfortably into their seats and glued their eyes to the big screen.

Gothenburg's Filmstaden Bergakungen, which opened in 2006, is Scandinavia's most spectacular movie theater complex, with Sweden's largest screens, mind-blowing digital sound and the most comfortable seating available.  Part of the largest theater, a 10,000-square-meter [100,000-square-foot] space, is nestled deep within the cliffs beneath Burgårdsparken, with a 400-square-meter [4,300-square-foot] glass façade.  The foyer is also home to a café and a restaurant. Bergakungen also houses an exclusive VIP section with leather armchairs and a VIP lounge, the first of its kind in Sweden.  Each of the two largest theaters is equipped with 21 extra-wide seats with spacious legroom.

"We'd been searching for a movie theater location in Gothenburg for many years," explains Jan Bernhardsson, CEO of SF Bio.  "We had wanted to blast a large theater space into the cliffs near Konserthuset, hence the name Bergakungen — the king of the mountain.  But this turned out to be impossible, and after several rounds of discussions, the project gradually moved toward Burgårdsparken.

One particularly cold winter's day, Jan walked to the site with some project team members, trying to envision how to bring business to the remote area.  They decided they needed to turn the theater into a destination unto itself, complete with a restaurant, bar and café.  "We needed something that would turn an average night out at the movies into a genuinely special occasion," says Jan.  "This is how we came up with the idea of the VIP lounge — something people would really talk about.  And as they say: The rest is history."

Bergakungen is a haven for film buffs.  THX-standard theaters, Dolby SRD and DTS digital audio systems guarantee perfect sound quality.  But they have also lavished attention on the details — at restaurant Danilo, named after the Italian master director Federico Fellini's costume and lighting director Danilo Donati, black-and-white neorealist films are projected onto curtains.  In true Hollywood Boulevard style, a painting composed of twelve handprints from stars such as Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins hangs in the inner foyer.

"Bergakungen is entirely in a class of its own," says Mats Kullander, Director of Building and Development at SF Bio.  "It has everything we wanted to offer.  And when it comes to audio quality, you won't find better sound at any movie theater anywhere in the world."

Moviegoers obviously appreciate the Bergakungen experience.  In its first year, Bergakungen attracted 1.2 million people — well over the 800,000 SF Bio had estimated.

"At premiers I always stand at the entrance to the best theater and listen to people's reactions.  By far the most common reactions are: 'Wow, what a theater!' or 'This is the coolest movie theater I've ever seen!'" says Mats.  "This is the greatest reward for me."

As early as 1923, world-famous architect Gunnar Asplund wrote that movie theaters should be designed so that people "gradually become accustomed to the darkness."  This is precisely how Bergakungen is constructed.

"The way you enter and leave a movie theater is vital to the overall experience," Mats explains.  "At most theaters, you either enter from the rear, where you only see a mass of seatbacks with the screen in the distance; or you enter from the front, where you can't even see the screen.  At Bergakungen 1 and 2, you emerge at the seventh row.  From there, you have a great perspective of the entire space, and at the same time you can take in the enormous screen — 18 meters [60 feet] wide.  So you see, size does matter."

Illegal downloading from the internet has become a threat to the film industry.  But Mats Kullander isn't worried about his business.

"As long as we make sure that films are best seen at the theater, I'm convinced that we have a bright future ahead.  Of course you can sit at home in front of your computer if you like, but nothing beats seeing a film in a real theater on an 18-meter screen with 400 others who laugh and shudder together.  It's pure magic."

FACTS:

Bergakungen

* The Nordic countries' largest, most modern and most spectacular movie theater complex.

* 14 screens.

* 2,260 seats.

* 150 films and 22,000 screenings per year.

* Completely digital foyer with 104 flat-screen displays.

* 170,000 meters of film shown per day, amounting to 62,000 kilometers of film per year, or a distance of one and a half times around the earth's equator.

* Sweden's most expansive screen: 18.1 meters [60 feet] wide and 7.6 meters [25 feet] high, the equivalent of 573 28-inch TV screens.

* In order for the speakers to project audio through the screens, they are constructed with 40,000 holes per square meter - the largest screen having a total of 5.5 million holes.

* Over 20 km of data cables were required to equip all screens, computers and sales counters at Filmstaden Bergakungen.