About

I went in as a poet, hoping to activate the audience's imagination. If 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' were full only of scientific facts, it would be instantly forgettable. My idea was always to step aside and let the art do the talking … It was my duty to document as clearly as possible the work of people who lived thirty two thousand years ago. - Werner Herzog

For this extraordinary documentary, Werner Herzog was granted exclusive access into the Chauvet Caves in France, home to the oldest known cave paintings in the world. In order to ensure the careful preservation of the caves, Herzog was restricted to just a four-person crew and only a few hours of filming each day. Despite these constraints, he and his team captures the breathtaking paintings of animals – bison, horses, cave bears, mammoths among them – in vivid detail, bringing to life the incredible power of these images after more than 32,000 years on the cave walls. Herzog also meets with the scientists and historians who study these locations and their relationship with the earliest surviving example of humanity's artistic imaginings.