The Great Arch
(L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche)
Stéphane Demoustier
The Grand Arche („great arch”) is a monumental building made from glass, marble and concrete on the outskirts of Paris. It is 110 meters tall, located in line of sight to the Arc de Triomphe and was planned for and inaugurated on the occasion of the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989. The 1983 competition for President Mitterrand’s prestigious project was won not by a stararchitect but by the unknown Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, who up until this point had only designed his own home and four churches.
Stéphane Demoustier’s film, which is based on a novel by Laurence Cossé, paints Speckelsen (Claes Bang) as someone who tries to defend his artistic vision without compromise. His opponent is Mitterand’s advisor Subilon (Xavier Dolan), a bureaucrat who primarily has his eyes on the costs. Arguments about building materials, dimensions and utilisation are inevitable and at times get quite heated. Speckelsen, whom everyone calls Otto, isolates himself more and more, doesn’t even trust his project manager Andreu (Swann Arlaud) anymore. This film, which is also humorous, shows the conflicts that arise when an architect’s dream clashes with reality, when art clashes with politics. And that, as we know, is rarely in the best interest of art.
2 May 2026
17:00 h, Elysee 1 im Festivalzentrum
More information
| Direction | Stéphane Demoustier |
| Country | France, Denmark |
| Production year | 2025 |
| Duration | 106 min |
| Language | French, Danish |
| Language Version | OV with English Subs |
| Genre | Drama |
| Production | Muriel Meynard, Marie Gade Denessen |
| Production company | Agat Films - Ex Nihilo |
| Co-production | Zentropa, France 3 Cinema, Le Pacte |
| Distribution | Le Pacte |
| Cast | Claes Bang, Michel Fau, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Xavier Dolan, Swann Arlaud |
| Director of Photography | David Chambille |
| Script | Stéphane Demoustier |
| Montage | Damien Maestraggi |
| Sound | Julien Sicart Tan-Ham, Sarah Lelu, Eddie Simonsen, Johannes Rasmus Rose |
| Music | Olivier Marguerit |
| Sound Design | Johannes Rasmus Rose, Eddie Simonsen |
CANNES 2025
Presented by:
About the director
Stéphane Demoustier, born in 1977, is a French director and producer. After studying political science, he made documentary films for the architectural division of the French Ministry of Culture. In addition to many short films, he made four feature films before The Great Arch: 40-Love (2014), Cléo & Paul (2018), The Girl with a Bracelet (2019), for which he won a César, and Borgo (2023). As a producer, he was responsible, among others, for Anaïs in Love (2021), Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s feature film debut.
Press reviews
"Stéphane Demoustier succeeds in conveying the most subtle nuances to an (architecturally) uninformed audience by inserting a comedic layer which does not shy away even from the French presidential elite and their retinue of high-ranking bureaucrats. This combination of tristesse and glamour gives the film its alluring balance, its vitality, and its charme." (Cineuropa)
"In between the human drama and the architectural fresco, the film invites the audience to view the building – in all phases of its development – and to understand the man, who envisioned it, and the challenges he has been through. Shot in a square aspect ratio, the film literally encloses its characters within its frame, as if to remind us that the building’s monumentality conceals a process of a long, restricted, and deeply complex structure." (Vogue France)
With an introduction by Oliver Elser (DAM)
International Feature Film Program
