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On Oct. 19, the Kimbell Art Museum will turn its Piano Pavilion into a portal through time. For one afternoon only, Fort Worth audiences can descend into lost tombs beneath Notre-Dame, dive to a Roman shipwreck shimmering with ancient glass, and trek across the Andean highlands of the vanished Inca Empire — all part of the Arkhaios Cultural Heritage and Archaeology Film Festival.
Presented in partnership with the long-running Arkhaios Cultural Heritage and Archaeology Film Festival, the Kimbell’s three-hour screening series will showcase a trio of recent international documentaries exploring the mysteries, craftsmanship, and resilience of civilizations past. The event is free and open to the public, and two of the films — “Vitrum: Rome’s Glass Revolution” and “The Rise and Fall of the Incas: The Golden Age” — will make their U.S. premiere.
“Now in its thirteenth year, the Arkhaois Film Festival occurs every October as part of the month-long celebration of International Archaeology Day. It brings together an impressive group of experts — including archaeologists, anthropologists, and filmmakers—to select both full-length and short documentary films for virtual screenings,” said Connie Hatchette Barganier, head of education at the Kimbell Art Museum. “The Kimbell is excited to again participate as an in-person screening venue to show three documentaries from among the longer list of over thirty titles recognized by the Festival.”
The afternoon begins at 2:05 p.m. with “The Lost Tombs of Notre-Dame.” Directed by Florence Tran and produced by Christine Le Goff and Marion Papillon of France’s ZED Studios, the film follows the extraordinary excavation that began after the 2019 fire ravaged the iconic cathedral. Beneath the scorched floor, archaeologists unearthed two lead sarcophagi and fragments of a long-destroyed wooden screen — clues to centuries of faith and craftsmanship that modern technology is only now beginning to decode.
At 3 p.m., audiences will plunge beneath the Mediterranean in “Vitrum: Rome’s Glass Revolution,” an underwater exploration of a shipwreck found 360 meters deep between Corsica and Italy. Directed by Marcello Adamo, the film chronicles the discovery of tons of ancient Roman glass — not just a sunken cargo, but evidence of an entire civilization’s leap in technology and art. The documentary follows the joint Franco-Italian team aboard the Alfred Merlin as they recover relics from the site, now known as Capo Corso 2, and trace how glassmaking forever transformed daily life in the ancient world.
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The festival closes with “The Rise and Fall of the Incas: The Golden Age.” Directors Quentin Domard and Elsa Haharfi take viewers from the fortress of Saqsaywaman to the lost city of Vilcabamba, with stops at Lake Titicaca and Machu Picchu. Through interviews, archaeological footage, and 3D CGI reconstructions, the film reimagines the empire’s grandeur and the mysteries that still cling to its mountain citadels.
The Arkhaios Film Festival runs from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Kimbell’s Piano Pavilion Auditorium. Admission is free, and no registration is required — though seats are first-come, first-served.
The Kimbell Art Museum is located at 3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard in Fort Worth. Admission to the museum’s permanent collection is always free, with half-price entry all day Tuesdays and after 5 p.m. on Fridays. For details, visit kimbellart.org.
