The wait is over; premiere dates for the highly anticipated film The Competition have been released. The first documentary ever to focus on the tense process of architectural competitions, The Competition captures a fascinating account on how five world renowned architects – Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, Dominique Perrault, Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster – “toil, struggle and strategize to beat the competition.” The premise is based on a nearly forgotten, 2008 competition for a new National Museum of Art of Andorra, a small Pyrenees country nestled between Spain and France, which has yet to be realized.
Above is a never-before-seen clip of Frank Gehry discussing project economics with the competition jury. Watch the official trailer and see if The Competition is premiering in a city near you, after the break.
The Competition’s USA theatrical release will be on April 1st, 7PM, at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Ave) in New York City. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director, Angel Borrego Cubero of Office for Strategic Spaces (OSS). Tickets are available online (here) and at Anthology's box office on the day of the show. The box office opens 30 minutes before the first show of the day.
The Competition has been selected at the Festival International du Film sur l’Art (FIFA), Montréal. There will be two screenings, both held at the Canadian Centre of Architecture (CCA): on March 22nd, 4PM and on March 29th AT 6.30PM. The screening on March 29th will be introduced by the director, Angel Borrego Cubero.
Other Upcoming Screenings:
- Belgium in Louvain on March 16th at Existenz Week and in Liège on March 30th, at the Union Wallonne des Architectes’s Congress
- Spain in A Coruña on March 23rd at Fetsac, Pamplona May 20th
- The Netherlands in Eindhoven on April 13th at NatLab
Where can you watch it?
For now you can watch it only at screenings. Last year The Competition had public releases in several countries and in those countries we are now authorizing screenings without the director in attendance, though we always recommend it since this kind of event has proved to be very successful. The countries where you can host a simple public screening are: Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Germany, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, UK. Starting April 2nd, we can also authorize simple screenings in USA. In the remaining countries, every public screening must have the director in attendance for a screen talk.
The release on DVD is planned to start at the end of 2015.
