The Great Arch(L'inconnu de la Grande Arche)

The commissioning of a Paris landmark sets off a tug of war between idealism and bureaucracy in Stéphane Demoustier’s Cannes-premiered architecture saga. When the French president runs a competition to build a spectacular office block in time for the 1989 bicentenary of the French Revolution, the winner is Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, a little-known Danish architect of just four churches and a house. Sure of his concept and focused on following it, the designer becomes a pained presence as he’s stymied by building codes, budget cuts and political change. After last year’s The Brutalist, the backstory of the French capital’s Grande Arche inspires another monumental portrait of an architect struggling to realise a vision he poured his entire self into.

Cannes Film Festival