Can Lis – Utzon’s Hidden Masterpiece to Receive Its UK Premiere at Thurrock International Film Festival

Can Lis-Utzon’s Hidden Masterpiece make its UK premiere this October following its selection for the Thurrock International Film Festival.

Directed by Juan A. Morillas and produced by Share Your Green Design, the documentary continues its international festival journey with a screening on 3 October at the Purfleet Heritage & Military Centre in Essex.

The film explores Jørn Utzon’s extraordinary home on the cliffs of Mallorca, a project created as the Danish architect’s personal retreat after his departure from the Sydney Opera House. More than fifty years after it was built, Can Lis continues to resonate with architects and designers through its sensitive relationship with landscape, climate, and local materials.

At a time when sustainability dominates architectural debate, the house feels remarkably contemporary. Utzon’s approach to building with the environment rather than against it offers lessons that remain as relevant today as they were when the house was completed in the early 1970s.

The screening will take place inside the historic Purfleet Heritage & Military Centre, housed within a Grade I listed former Royal Gunpowder Magazine dating from the eighteenth century, an unusual and fitting setting for a documentary that reflects on architecture, place, and cultural legacy.

Following the screening, audiences will have the opportunity to take part in a twenty-minute Q&A session with attending filmmakers and representatives from the films presented in the programme block.

We are grateful to the festival team for including Can Lis-Utzon’s Hidden Masterpiece in this year’s programme and look forward to sharing the film with UK audiences for the first time.