FilmHallen — Attraction in Amsterdam

Dear FilmHallen, I am never one to leave a negative review as I understand running a business has its challenges. But I would like to share my experience/views so that you as an operator can hear the client's perspective. We had a negative experience that seems to resonate with many of the others on your rigid policy. We were meant to watch the Beyonce renaissance film (which has limited screening), and were 15 mins late due to the Palestine ceasefire protest on the streets. As it is a show with limited screening, there are no alternative dates for this film - this is also the reason why we explained our situations to see if you would make an exception. I believe we had a good reason to be late as it is a protest about human lives. We explained that we were late due to the inevitable disruption caused by the ceasefire protest; the staff understood the reason but denied us entry with the reason that "it would be unfair to the others to let you in". The staff was cold, not understanding and said that that was the policy. My concern about your messaging is that it translates to "the (ceasefire) protest has led you to this situation, don't blame us (i.e. blame the protest)". This messaging is questionable; we were not late by choice, but because of an important protest about war, its ceasefire and most importantly human lives. I feel that you would agree this is an exceptional situation where your customer's lives are disrupted (because a protest is designed to disrupt lives to make awareness about a cause), but your policy has been unforgiving - which leads to my second point. With this rigid way of handling, I felt that FilmHallen as an arthouse/independent cinema has lost its humane and understanding approach, and now feels very much like a unforgiving corporate robot - "rule says A, means A", when in reality many people have gone into unwarranted situations not by chance or choice, but by reality. I hate to see FilmHallen goes down to this route. A rule is a rule in a big cinema chain, because they don't care about their customers and their circumstances. But isn't the whole point of an independent establishment to create a more people-centred, empathetic, non-corporate-like approach to deliver film experiences for your customers? Today and unfortunately today when compassion is most needed by the world, FilmHallen feels like a large, stone-cold, uncompassionate organisation. This leaves a question - what is a cultural centre without people, empathy and kindness in mind? Indeed, we were absolutely heartbroken by today's experience. If you have read until here, I thank you for hearing our perspectives and wish you a...

Nothing wrong with location, staff or hospitality. But this may be the worst cinema I've ever been too when it comes to the movie experience. It seems they hired a child from kindergarten to draw out the floorplan and seat/screen placement. It's all out of whack!

The screen is too small for the room size and it's way too high up so you have to tilt your head upward to see it. There is no black masking on the screen, so any overshoot from the projector get annoyingly visible, not to mention the loss of perceived picture contrast. The screen is not sentered in the room(what the devil is this!), there's a doorway on one side forcing the screen of center... Imagine paying full ticket price and be placed on the right side of the room.

Imagine working for years on perfecting a movie just to have it shown in a movie theater like this. My god, the...

Hands down my favourite cinema in Amsterdam. Small, but cozy theaters with comfortable seats. Fantastic selection of films, all for comparable prices to the rest of Amsterdam. The mainstream ones but they also pick up smaller ones from around the world and various international film festivals which means there's always something new and different to see - I definitely recommend signing up to their weekly newsletter for updates. They are part of the cineville, but also have a great strippenkart option if you don't think you can go often, every month, but if you will definitely be visiting frequently. Really nice bar and can take beer into the cinema with you. I recommend even just popping in to see it! I feel I should also just state for the record: there's definitely nothing hipster about me and I've never felt...