Heartbeat of the Primeval Forest. Part I. Living Wild (Great Home)

Duration: 29’ 30”
Original format: 4:3 SD
Format after the revitalization: 16:9 HD

Screenplay and direction: Bożena Walencik, Jan Walencik
Cinematography: Jan Walencik, Krystian Matysek
Sound: Bożena Walencik, Jan Walencik, Ewa Salecka
Editing: Bożena Walencik, Jan Walencik
Sound engineering: Włodzimierz Kazimierczak
Assistant: Krzysztof Komar
Music: Ireneusz Dreger
Lectors: Krystyna Czubówna, Bengt Scotland
Production organization: Sławomir Boniecki
Scientific consultation: Janusz Faliński, Krystyna Falińska, Jerzy Gutowski, Bogumiła Jędrzejewska, Włodzimierz Jędrzejewski, Amelia Kawecka, Simona Kossak, Czesław Okołów, Zdzisław Pucek, Stefan Sikora, Aleksander Sokołowski, Ludwik Tomiałojć, Wiesław Walankiewicz, Tomasz Wesołowski
Co-operation: Białowieża National Park

TVP 1 would like to thank for help during the production of the film: employees of the Białowieża National Park, employees of the Białowieża Geobotanical Station of the University of Warsaw, employees of the Mammal Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Białowieża, employees of the Institute of Natural Forests of the Forest Research Institute in Białowieża, employees of the Białowieża Forest District, employees of the Browsk Forest District, employees of the Hajnówka Forest District, Białowieża Forest National Park – Belarus, Border Guard Guards in Białowieża, R. E. and H. Z. Z. PAN Research Station in Popielno, Zoological Gardens in Warsaw, Poznań, Kraków and Bydgoszcz, Inhabitants of Białowieża and Hajnówka

Producer: Telewizja Polska S.A. (Polish Television)
Lead time: 1993–1995
End of production: 1995
Revitalization to HD: 2014

Frames from the film (QUOTES).

In the middle of The Old Continent, on the eastern borders of Poland and the western borderlands of Belarus, the heartbeat of the primeval forest beats. Uninterrupted for several thousand years. In the abundant, dim greenness the same backwoods are still crossed by the emperors of the Forest – European bison. As in the times of King Jagiełło, as in the times of Mendog. The only remnant of truly primeval forests that once covered the European lowlands – the Biosphere Reserve and Human Heritage – the eternal Białowieża Primeval Forest.

QUOTE. Excerpt from the film Heartbeat of the Primeval Forest. Part I. Living Wild. Directed by Bożena Walencik, Jan Walencik. Source: TVP.

The authors of the series – presenters, present the complex space of the Primeval Forest, comparing it to a huge house, full of countless places for myriads of inhabitants to live. They see this natural forest as a mosaic of primeval environments. They show eight ancient and modern forest communities: alder carr, bog coniferous forest, pine forest, coniferous forest, boreal bog spruce forest, mixed coniferous forest, alder ash flood plain forest and oak-hornbeam forest. They try to sense something significant and ephemeral in them – the soul of the Primeval Forest. Then they discover the floors of the great Forest house – countless places to live and film their residents: the original plants and animals. They distinguish the crown floor, the trunk floor, the brushwood floor, the undergrowth layer, the basement of the Forest – the underground layer and the water zone. They travel with camera and microphone through all these floors, showing them from an unusual perspective.