L'inconnu de la Grande Arche

The Great Arch

Year: 2025
Country: France, Denmark
Director: Stéphane Demoustier
Cast: Claes Bang, Michel Fau, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Xavier Dolan, Swann Arlaud
Genre: drama, biography, history
Runtime: 107 min.
Age: 18+
The story of Otto von Spreckelsen, a real-life architecture teacher from Copenhagen, who surprised the world when he won an open-call competition launched by French president François Mitterrand.

1983. French President François Mitterrand decides to launch an international architectural competition for the flagship project of his mandate: the Great Arch of La Défense, aligned with the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe.
Against all odds, Otto von Spreckelsen, a Danish architect, wins the competition.

Overnight, this 53-year-old man, unknown in France, arrives in Paris where he is propelled at the helm of this pharaonic project.

While the architect intends to build the Great Arch exactly as he envisioned, his ideas quickly clash with realistic constraints and the vicissitudes of politics.

Awards & Festivals:

Cannes Film Festival – Nominee Un Certain Regard Award
Lumiere Awards – Best Screenplay
César Awards, Nominee – Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor
Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR) – participation
Gijón International Film Festival – participation
Jerusalem Film Festival – participation


LAF: Summer Architecture Festival 2026

Вадим Рутковский

28 July 2026

Как строили, строили и наконец построили

«Большая арка» Стефана Демустье – хит Каннского кинофестиваля 2025 года и один из хедлайнеров Летнего архитектурного фестиваля ЛАФ в «Художественном»