Not only the wilderness is new, but also the genre that is being revived in the Netherlands with this film.
“The silence of nature has many sounds”. With this quote from Henriëtte Roland Holst – to whom filmmaker Annette Apon recently dedicated the documentary Dream and Deed – the nature documentary The New Wilderness, the ambitious project of Ruben Smit and Mark Verkerk begins on the Oostvaardersplassen. But the New World is not at all silent. The entire film is the music of Bob Zimmerman, performed by the Metropole Orkest, prominently present, as the seasons pass in special images.
Industry area
The Oostvaardersplassen is an unregulated nature reserve, unique in the otherwise neatly raked Netherlands. At the end of the sixties, the reclamation of this former part of the Zuiderzee was a fact. In the plans this large area was intended for heavy industry and ports. But the need for this interpretation diminished, after which nature had free rein for years. Soon it became a popular bird area and nature developed into a special combination of large areas of grassland, lakes and the swampy parts in between. Since then, the Oostvaardersplassen has been a special area where human intervention is limited to a minimum. The enormous area of 56 km2 is also very limited accessible. In exceptional cases, filmmakers Mark Verkerk and Ruben Smit were allowed to enter the pristine and closed area to follow nature and animals for two years.