The Biebrza River, protected by Poland’s largest national park, is a sensation on a European scale. Its surrounding Biebrza Marshes are a wild, partly uninhabited area which offers close encounters with Poland’s biggest moose herd and numerous wolf packs. The river is also one of the largest marsh bird sanctuaries in Central and Eastern Europe. On 5 June 2015, Biebrza – Between Reality and Dream, a documentary devoted to the Polish river’s beauty, will have its TV premiere on the Polish public television’s Channel One (TVP 1). It is already available at selected cinemas.

“Marshes are not my favourite terrain; I prefer mountains and dense woods. But an accident of fate led me to the Biebrza,” the film’s director Paolo Volponi tells Polska.pl. “The director of the Biebrza National Park strongly encouraged me to make this film. I wrote the script and we managed to secure funding by winning a contest for a nature film, organised by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management. And that’s how I got into it,” adds the artist.

The documentary delights the viewer with poetic sequences of pristine wildlife, a beautiful score by Dariusz Żebrowski and Mikołaj Hertel, and an original narration which centres on almost 100 Biebrza species—from wolves and moose to white-tailed eagles, cranes, grass snakes, pikes and butterflies—making them the movie’s protagonists.

“Shooting this movie was a great pleasure, but also a great effort,” Mr Volponi told after a screening at a Warsaw cinema. “The first take which shows migratory geese arriving took me three years’ intensive work and I can say today I’m almost satisfied with it.”