The Palazzo del Cinema at Venice Lido is the main facility and screening theatre of the Venice Film Festival. It was built according to the modernist trends of the 1930s, and inaugurated on 10th August 1937 on the occasion of the fifth edition of the festival.

The Palazzo was enlarged in 1952 by adding a new facade and entrance hall. A few years later, Federico Fellini said that for a film director, “entering the Palazzo del Cinema at the Venice Film Festival was like passing a final exam.”

Inside the Palazzo lies the Sala Grande, with a seating capacity of 1,100. This theatre has made the history of the Venice Film Festival, welcoming over the years, with its very particular warmth, the greatest personalities of world cinema. Three further screening theatres, smaller in size, find their location inside the Palazzo: the Sala Volpi (150 seats) and two additional screening rooms, the Sala Zorzi and the Sala Pasinetti.

At present the Lido is hosting a construction site for the building of the new Palazzo, which is to represent the new requirements of a modern, international film festival.