The filming story

Chauvet Cave, discovered in the Ardèche gorge on 18 December 1994 by speleologists Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel, and Christian Hillaire, contains charcoal drawings of lions, rhinoceroses, mammoths, and horses dated to 36,000 years ago — making them the oldest known figurative art in the world. The French Ministry of Culture closed the cave immediately after its discovery to prevent the bacterial contamination that had irreversibly damaged the Lascaux paintings after their public opening in 1948.

Herzog received special permission from the French Ministry of Culture in 2010 to film inside the cave with a team of no more than three people at a time. No tripods were permitted on the cave floor to avoid disturbing the archaeological deposits; the crew used shoulder-mounted 3D cameras and moved only on a narrow raised walkway. No artificial lighting was allowed beyond compact LED units — Herzog’s cameraman Peter Zeitlinger improvised lighting as they moved. The entire access period lasted only a few days across several visits.

Inside the cave, Herzog discovered a bear skull placed on a natural rock platform — positioned deliberately by a Paleolithic human 35,000 years ago. He described the moment, on camera, as encountering “the soul of ancient man.” The resulting documentary was the first film shot in 3D inside a prehistoric cave, and it remains the only film ever made inside Chauvet. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2010 and won Best Documentary at numerous awards ceremonies. The cave itself remains permanently closed to the public; a full-scale replica, the Caverne du Pont d’Arc, opened nearby in 2015.