Brady Corbet's historical drama “The Brutalist,” starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce, surprised the Venice Film Festival on Sunday with a 12-minute standing ovation.

Brody, who plays a Hungarian Holocaust survivor struggling to revive his career as an architect in the U.S., was overcome with emotion as the applause continued. The actor wiped away tears and held his head in his hands, repeatedly trying to direct the applause toward his director and co-stars, but the spotlight kept falling on him.

The three-and-a-half-hour drama, with a 15-minute intermission, follows Brody’s character over nearly four decades as he emigrates to the U.S. and goes to work for a wealthy but irascible man who wants to build a unique community center. He helps Laslav reunite with his ailing wife (Jones) and begins construction on the brutalist building of his dreams, but a fateful incident changes both of their lives forever.

The cast also includes Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Jonathan Hyde, Isaach De Bankolé, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird and Peter Polycarpou. In addition to directing the film, Corbet also co-wrote the screenplay with his wife Mona Fastvold ("The Sleepwalker").