Aleksandr Sokurov, the director of Russian Ark, turns his attention to the Louvre in this hauntingly illustrated tribute to the great art museum and its preservation of cultural heritage through the rise and fall of empires.

Produced with the full cooperation of the Louvre, Francofonia evokes the history of the great Paris art museum and its vast collections, from the Renaissance to the present day. Mythic and historic figures wander the halls, not least Napoleon, whose plundering of the Middle East ironically preserved many great works of art from destruction in subsequent wars, and Count Franziskus Wolf-Metternich, the Nazi appointed to oversee France’s art treasures during the Second World War.

Mixing re-enactment and archive footage, it's an enthralling, free-flowing and interweaving documentary that looks at art preservation, war and history. It's well worth spending a night at this museum.

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