Friends of the Cotsen Enjoy Exclusive Film Discussion

Friends of the Cotsen Institute were recently treated to an exclusive virtual discussion of Chauvet Cave: Masterworks of the Paleolithic. The discussion and Q&A session were held in conjunction with the global digital film premier of  The Final Passage, a 28-minute immersive experience of the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave and its paintings. Guests at the virtual event hosted by the Cotsen Institute were Jean-Michel Geneste, General Curator of Cultural Heritage for the Ministry of Culture in France and former curator of the Lascaux caves, and the film’s producer, Martin Marquet. Participants were invited to watch the film online prior to the event.  

Since its discovery in 1998, the extraordinary rock art of the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in south-central France has been celebrated for its remarkable realism and demonstration of skill never before seen in cave art. Dating back 36,000 years, the myriad paintings of horses’ heads, mammoths, bears, cave lions, rhinoceroses and more use irregularities of the limestone to impart a sense of three-dimensionality and movement to these animals of the Paleolithic. View the lecture below.

Friends of the Cotsen help ensure the Cotsen Institute will remain at the forefront of discovery, research, education, conservation and publication. To learn more, contact Michelle Jacobson at mjacobson@ioa.ucla.edu.