This film tells the story of the 5-year construction project of the century. Previously unseen footage, filmed continuously since the fatal fire in 2019, documents the technological challenges and extraordinary human adventure involved in bringing Notre Dame cathedral back to life and restoring it to its former glory for its reopening on the 8th of December 2024.
For five years, we followed the reconstruction of Notre-Dame. During the first year, we were alone in being able to film the interior of the cathedral in the aftermath of the fire and, thanks to our exclusive agreement with the Etablissement Public Notre-Dame, we were able to gain unique insights and rare moments of intimacy.
This documentary tells the story of the reconstruction from the inside, through the eyes of those who lived it. A unique adventure and a massive construction site that mobilised the best artisans and transformed them. Faced with the risk of the building collapsing, technical difficulties, bad weather, Covid and lead dust, it was a technological, human and collective feat, led by a former army general, who tragically died a year before the end of the project, and a brilliant architect.
To tell this story, we follow eight strong characters, with whom we experience
the rebirth of Notre-Dame, their own transformations and the ways in which the project changes their lives. We relive the emotion of the rescue, when the cathedral was threatening to collapse and when, between life and death, the giant carcass of charred scaffolding had to be cut up and extracted, the burnt timbers removed, the stained glass windows and burnt chimeras taken out and every stone cleaned. We relive the final flurry of the last year, when 600 tonnes of scaffolding had to be installed up to a height of 100 metres, the giant beams hoisted up, the metal and wood spire rebuilt and crowned with a new golden rooster, hundreds of oak trees felled, the roof structure covered with lead, the gaping holes in the vault filled and the chimeras, stained glass windows and paintings restored, right up to the finishing touches.
