Fans of cinema-as-art shouldn’t miss an upcoming 3D film “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” to be shown at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Vashon Theatre.

The award-winning film, made in 2010 by acclaimed German film director Werner Herzog, takes viewers inside Chauvet Cave, an almost inaccessible site in France that is home to the largest collection of pristine ancient artwork ever discovered.

The cave is not only full of paintings, but other evidence of ice-age life, including fossilized remains of cave bears and other birds and mammals. The oldest human footprints ever found — left by a child who walked in the cave almost 30,000 years ago — have also been found there.

Since archeological teams found the site in 1994, only a few people have been allowed access into the cave, and the breathtaking scope of its contents had never been seen by the general public until Herzog managed to gain access. His film won ecstatic reviews, including one from Kenneth Turin at The Los Angeles Times, who wrote that film showed audiences “a sacred space where the human and the mystical effortlessly intertwine, and we are in Werner Herzog’s debt for that great gift.”

Herzog, born in Germany in 1942, is the director of more than 60 feature and documentary films, including such masterpieces as “Aguirre, The Wrath of God,” “Fitzcarraldo,” and “Nosferatu the Vampyre.”

“Cave of Forgotten Dreams” is being presented by the Vashon Film Society as part of its monthly series of art films at the local theater. It’s the first 3D film presented by the group. Tickets to the show are $7.