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I passed by this window display every week and hoped and prayed to God that no one would buy the book. It seems I thought that book was the only one, that there were no copies. I bought the book and since then this kind of awe has been inside me. It was instantly clear that I had to make this film and I had a very strong affinity with it.

The process started seven or eight months before filming and there were massive hurdles - as a German, why should I make a film about a French cave? I was lucky because the French minister of culture is apparently a great fan of my films. This made it somewhat easier. I also proposed that I work as an employee of the French ministry of culture and give the film to the French for free, so that they could play it in tens of thousands of French classrooms in high schools and colleges, all for free. Of course I demanded a fee, which was one Euro, and it was a good argument.

There were other hurdles. The regional government or the scientists could have said no, because of there being too many people, too many exhalations of humans breath, which is very damaging [for the paintings].

There was a huge legal problem with the discoverers of the cave, who for 16 years sued the French state over their discovery and lost every single lawsuit and appeal. They claimed to have some sort of copyright, but of course you cannot copyright something that is 32,000 years old. There was a claim over participating in books, photos, postcards, movies, whatever. They were in a way the tragic figures in the film and unfortunately they did not agree to participate in the shoot.

I wish they had done, but apparently the shooting of this movie facilitated things, which meant the French ministry of culture agreed to have an independent arbitrator step in, and I believe there will be a decision very soon. We tried to put a credit, a written text at the very end about the discoverers, but I haven’t seen it yet. It was a last-moment addendum.

But I really want to express my gratitude and I think the whole world owes them something sensational. Without them we may have never seen these images. Maybe in 20,000 years, somebody would have eventually come across this cave. So their achievement is monumental. I have met them and I like them, and they like me back, but I did not want to compromise myself in a legal position.

Q – I noticed that you dedicated the film to the discoverers. Can you tell us some more about them? Was it the best thing that ever happened to them or did it ruin their lives?

WH – Unfortunately they all regret the moment that they discovered the cave because from then, things got worse and worse and worse - because they apparently misjudged their legal possibilities.

They spent all the money they had on lawsuits. Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, who co-discovered the cave with Jean-Marie Chauvet - she lives in a place not very far from the cave and she has no money left and she could not pay her electricity bill. When I met her we had a glass of wine and when it got dark she had to light a candle because she had no electricity and no fridge. Things have improved now, I’m fairly certain. But ultimately it was a tragic discovery, what ensued became tragic.

Q. I was curious about the master perfumer. How did he come about?

WH – When I knew there were plans to make a replica, and I learned that there was a lady who was supposed to recreate the scent inside the cave, I contacted her and she said she would participate. Then she said no, then yes, then no… until we were down with cameras.

I had a feeling she would not go on camera; besides she was kind of boring. I said: “we have to find someone who is wonderful in smelling!” Then we discovered the master perfumer, who was the president of the perfume association of France, who is a wonderful man, and I really loved him. I asked him: “will you come with us?” He was wildly explaining the senses, and I said to him: “please come with us, we will have a camera on you, just go wild!”

In a way it was staged and we framed the staging. For example, one of the scientists, Jean Claude, asked for silence and listened to the silence. In fact, at dinner we had talked about silence, and how when you hold your breath you can hear your heartbeat. So I asked Jean Claude if he could repeat that in the cave, and turn towards us when he asks for silence, saying: “maybe you can hear your heartbeat?”

It was staged and scripted but still coming from a real situation, and it sensitises the audience to the sounds, to what they are going to see and experience. So I think these figures or these ‘scripted’ elements are very legitimate, because from that moment you really listen to the silence. You really listen, you open your fantasies, you listen much better to the music - which is phenomenal and beautiful.

Q. - What aspect of 3D is still underestimated by filmmakers?

WH - I have seen only one 3D film, which was AVATAR. The problem with AVATAR is some of the story, which is New-Age bullshit! But otherwise it was a colossal achievement. Please do not underestimate it, it is a monumental event in filmmaking, it has opened up a whole arena in 3D.

However, I am still a sceptic about 3D for two reasons. One, we are not made for seeing in 3D all the time. I can draw a parallel with sound. When we are in a noisy sidewalk café and we are talking to each other, we listen to each other and we hear each other’s voice. But if we recorded it with a microphone we would only hear the traffic and we could barely make out the dialogue, because when listening from a recording, the brain cannot focus, it cannot be selective anymore. And a similar thing happens with 3D. It does not open up the fantasies of being selective, it forces itself on us and it is uncomfortable.

When we are talking to each other we don’t notice that there is a third dimension there. Basketball players notice it, they know where the basket is even when they are turned away from it. Or if somebody comes at you with a knife or a bloody axe, of course you will immediately switch over to 3D and see how quickly the attacker comes.

Also, the most intense argument I have is that, beyond the strictures of 3D, you do not see anything else. It’s like fireworks, there’s nothing beyond the fireworks. And if you had a story, say RASHOMON by Kurosawa, a comedy, or a romantic comedy, you could not shoot it in 3D because it would be defined by nothing but that.

In a romantic comedy, as a spectator, I experience a parallel story inside me: will the lovers find each other after they have come apart, after the argument, after misunderstandings? So as an audience we start to develop separate parallel stories, stories within our hearts, stories within our fantasies. And 3D ties us down to what there is and nothing beyond. There’s nothing beyond the fireworks, and because of that I keep saying, like a dictum: “you can shoot a porno film in 3D because there’s nothing beyond the porno, there’s nothing beyond fornication. But you cannot shoot a romantic comedy in 3D, it’s not going to work.”

Q – What materials were used to paint on the walls?

WH – A good part is charcoal. They would burn wood and use the charcoal to draw precise lines. Some of it is smudged by thumbs. The red paintings are made from ochre and they cannot be dated. Some scientists believe that some of these ochre paintings may be 10,000 years older but it’s complete speculation at the moment.

Q – How did you discover the biosphere at the end of the film?

WH – Well, I’m always curious, and someone told me there was a crocodile farm. At the end of the film we travelled to the Alps in southwestern Germany, and I said: “we’ve got to make a stopover, we have to see that.” We had a permit to film in there, so I walked in and all of a sudden, right after the entrance, there was this small enclosure and there are these two albino crocodiles! I couldn’t believe it, and I said: “get the cameras, we have to do something, this must be in the film, it’s too wild!”

They say the caves are warmed by radioactivity. Well, it’s fantasy, it’s a wild, wild speculation, but of course it has to do with our ability of perception. How do they see the world? How would they see paintings? How far and how remote are we from the paintings of the Chauvet Cave? So there’s a deep thought about it, but of course it’s a wild fantasy. The two albinos in fact come from Louisiana and they are not crocodiles but alligators. (Audience laughs.) You laugh because you are probably tied to the facts, but I am not tied to facts, I am tied to poetry.

Q – The lie that tells the truth!

WH – No it’s not a lie. It’s an intensified form of the truth! It’s not someone giving you lies in my movies. It is always a deeper ecstasy of the extended truth, an intensified form of truth, something that is beyond the phone directory. If you are saying it’s a lie, then you know what? I give you a straight A and you are an accountant. Fine with me.

Q – The 3D gave us a wonderful experience going into the cave. Could you talk about why you chose to use 3D here?

WH – It was immediately imperative once I saw the cave. I had been sceptical - Erik Nelson, the producer, had suggested it, and I had said: “no, it won’t look right”, because you have a wall of paintings. But the moment I saw them, with this wild drama of bulges and niches in their own dynamics, it was clear.

And in particular because we were the only team ever allowed in. This cave might be shut down for the next 5,000 years, and it was only open to a very small number of scientists, so it was immediately clear.

I had the feeling 3D should be used in such a way that we could still sensitise the audience to music, to fantasies, to the mystery of these images; that even though it was in 3D, you could reach beyond what you’ve just seen - you have to think, you have to see, you should be in awe. And a sense of awe comes across through 3D, strangely enough.

So I’m vacillating about whether my dictum about 3D is correct or not. I still have to think about it. But I’m very glad it was done in 3D - in a very limited time, too. It’s hard to make a 3D film in six days for four hours a day, and on location on these 2ft-wide walkways in semi-darkness. We had to build our cameras because in a closer shot we had to totally re-configure them. It’s a high-precision mechanical sort of thing and we had to grapple with that because there was no support from outside. Once the door was closed it was closed. Of course in an emergency we could have walked out but we would not have been allowed back in for that day. So it was really done on the run with three men, who were very wonderful at grappling with all the technical problems and were still able to come away with wonderful images. So I’m very, very grateful to the team we had.

It’s not just the images themselves. It’s also how the 3D images work with the music, a type of music you have not really heard before, a form of narration that is unusual. I have been lucky and I have been very blessed in the making of this film.