The Vatican Museums 3D

Take a personal tour of the Vatican Museums with this remarkable documentary . . .

The Vatican Museums 3D
In theaters Dec. 10
Run time: 82 minutes
Not Rated
Official Website

Most Catholics will never have the opportunity to set foot inside the Vatican museums. But now most Catholics have a chance to see the world’s most formidable art collection up close and personal — and in 3D.

The Vatican Museums 3D documentary opens on Dec. 10 for a limited time in the United States after a successful run in Australia and the U.K. This film event marks the very first time Ultra HD 4K/3D film cameras have been allowed inside the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel, bringing never-before-seen art to theaters across the country as Christians begin the season of Advent.

The film is a mega-production by a team of 40 professionals who traveled hundreds of miles in the cultural setting of the Vatican museums while filming some of the most rare and precious works of art in the world, spanning all civilizations and epochs. Thanks to a combination of the cutting- edge 3D techniques used for cinema by filmmakers

like James Cameron and Tim Burton, audiences can now fully immerse themselves in these timeless masterpieces of art history.

The film captures the outstanding artistry of classic statues from Michelangelo’s Pietà, right up to Fontana’s modern sculptures; paintings by Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh, Chagall and Dalì; the extraordinary frescos in the Rooms of Raphael, and the spectacular work by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Theater audiences experience the journey under the artful guidance of the Vatican museums’ director Antonio Paolucci, who expertly leads viewers through the past, present and future.

If you have visited the Vatican museums in person — or even experienced a professionally guided tour — this film is an extraordinary opportunity to relive the experience and get even closer to some of these treasures. The 3D experience is, in some ways, better than being there because the big screen reveals so much. Because of this, Vatican Museums 3D is not so much a movie but a pilgrimage to the world of art and history.

PATRICK NOVECOSKY is Legatus magazine’s editor-in-chief.