It looks like a mosaic of water and woodland – Finland, the most eastern part of Scandinavia. Close to the Russian border, Finland is still home to rare animals: bears and wolves roam the swampland, the Siberian flying squirrel lives in old woodpecker nest holes. This film shows animal behaviour that has never been filmed before: the film-makers got the first shots of a lynx in the Finnish wilderness, they did brilliant shots of goldeneye chicks jumping out of their tree nest, they filmed exciting encounters of bears and wolves and much more.
Biologist Oliver Goetzl (direction/screenplay/editing) and photographer Ivo Nörenberg (camera) have been working together since 1999. In 2004, they set up Gulo Film Productions, a company which now produces on behalf of NDR Naturfilm, the BBC and Wild Horizons. Their productions Finland – Bear, Elk, Wolverine (NDR 2006) and Wild Russia – The Urals (NDR 2009) won a total of 43 international awards, including a prize at Jackson Hole in 2007 and a nomination at Wildscreen 2006.