Today it is a protected historic building and one of the venues of the annual Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).

After the completion of Karl-Marx-Allee from Strausberger Platz to Proskauer Straße, the next phase (1959–1965) was to extend the street to Alexanderplatz.

In contrast to the first phase of construction of the Allee, dominated by the construction of elaborate Socialist Classicist buildings, the second phase included a mixture of Plattenbau, retail stores, restaurants, and cultural facilities according to plans of Edmund Collein, Werner Dutschke, and Josef Kaiser.

There were eight rows of seats with optimal views and extra legroom, reserved for state officials and party functionaries.

[citation needed] The Kino International's last premiere in the GDR was the gay-themed Coming Out, directed by Heiner Carow, on 9 November 1989, the day the Berlin Wall fell.

[7] The film was renovated in 1990,[6] and in the same year, a group of buildings which included Kino International were put under heritage protection.