La Grande Arche

In 1983, President François Mitterrand announced an international competition for his prestigious Grande Arche de la Défense: a modern monument in line with the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. To everyone's surprise, the winner was Danish architect Otto von Spreckelsen, who was still unknown in France at the time. From one day to the next, the 53-year-old found himself at the helm of a gigantic construction project that would become his life's work.

While the passionate Von Spreckelsen stubbornly sticks to the design for his “cube”, he soon encounters practical challenges, backroom politics and difficult collaboration with fellow architect Paul Andreu. Together with his wife and agent Liv, he fights to realise his vision, while bureaucracy and cultural differences constantly thwart him. With La Grande Arche, director Stéphane Demoustier tells the true story of ambition, creativity and perseverance, bringing one of France's most iconic architectural projects to life with an eye for detail. 

The Great Arch is a film adaptation of Laurence Cossé's book La Grande Arche and premiered this spring at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. Lead actor Claes Bang previously starred at the Northern Film Festival in Ruben Östlund's Golden Palm winner The Square (2017). Other notable actors include Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen (Borgen) and Canadian actor-director Xavier Dolan.