30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

For over 20,000 years, Chauvet Cave has been completely sealed off by a fallen rock face. Its crystal-encrusted interior, as large as a soccer field, is strewn with the petrified remains, of giant ice age mammals. In 1994, scientists discovered the caverns, and found hundreds of pristine paintings within, spectacular artwork dating back over 30,000 years (almost twice as old as any previous finds) to a time when Neanderthals still roamed the earth and cave bears, mammoths, and ice age lions were the dominant populations of Europe. Since then, only a few people had been allowed access to Chauvet Cave, and the true scope of its contents had largely gone un- graspeuntil Werner Herzog managed to gain access. Filming in 3D, Herzog captures the wonder and beauty of one of the most awe-inspiring sites on earth, all the while musing in his inimitable fashion about its original inhabitants, the birth of art, and the curious people surrounding the caves today. 

• 

  Werner Herzog

  Werner Herzog (1942) is a director, screenwriter, producer and documentary maker, considered one of the most important exponents of the new German cinema. Growing up in a small Bavarian village, he spent his childhood without ever seeing a film. After making his debut as a director at the age of nineteen, he made more than fifty films and documentaries, which earned him international fame and numerous awards, such as The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) and Fitzcarraldo (1982), awarded at Cannes, and Signs of Life (1968), winner of the Silver Bear in Berlin. The FFDL has already presented many of his works, including Kalachakra, Wheel of Time, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, The Wild Blue Yonder and La Sufrière.