On July 23rd at 8:15 p.m. on ORF 2 and on ORF ON
Vienna (OTS) – Since July 9, 2024, local natural jewels have been the focus of the “Universum” summer program: The next impressive nature documentary made in Austria will be Gernot Lercher’s 100-minute documentary on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, at 8:15 p.m. on ORF 2 and on ORF ON “Austria – Land of Green Borders” in the border regions of our country. Some of them are loud and heavily frequented, others quiet and forgotten – and these are among the most spectacular natural landscapes in all of Central Europe: such as Lake Neusiedl, the March-Thaya floodplains, the Carnic Alps, the high alpine region around the Piz Buin, Lake Constance or the mountain pastures in the Salzburg-Bavarian border area. The film was created as a co-production by ORF, Interspot Film and BMBF, supported by TV Fund Austria, Cinestyria, State of Lower Austria, State of Vorarlberg, State of Upper Austria, Burgenland Tourismus, State of Salzburg, State of Carinthia and Cine Tirol.
In opulent images, the documentary compares Austrian border landscapes with a wide variety of characters and sets out to search for animals that have come into our country over the now green border over the centuries or in the years since the fall of the Iron Curtain. As part of this journey of discovery, the “Universum” team also meets special people who live in these border areas – some of them have always been cross-border commuters. “My goal was to portray Austria’s border area as a connecting living space for people and animals. In order to be able to present at least two spectacular border sections in each federal state, we traveled more than 60,000 kilometers up and down the country – in a total of over 80 days of filming,” says director Gernot Lercher.
Lercher particularly remembers crossing the border at the Similaun Pass in the Ötztal Alps: “For one night and one day we accompanied South Tyrolean sheep flocks on their steep and dangerous path through ice and snow to the summer pastures in North Tyrol. Or the recordings in the dilapidated Hungarian border barracks on the former Iron Curtain just behind the Austrian border. Nature has now taken over there. Because as varied and impressive as the border landscapes around Austria are, so are their nature and wildlife.” And it has a lot to offer that you wouldn’t even expect in this country. Moose have recently been roaming through the forests at the border triangle between Upper Austria, Bavaria and the Czech Republic. On the border between Carinthia and Slovenia, “Universum” was looking for the Karawanken bears – and not far from the busiest border crossing in Austria, in Kufstein, where 50,000 cars roll over the asphalt between Germany and Austria on peak days, was in a tributary of the Inn a beaver home furnished. The hustle and bustle on the highway leaves the beaver unaffected: border worlds as animal paradises. Lake Neusiedl with its colorful and diverse bird life should not be missed.
Wars and peace treaties have determined how Austria’s borders should run. And it was only when the Iron Curtain fell that the borders that were once death strips could become protected habitats: as an important part of the so-called “Green Belt”, which connects Northern Europe with the Mediterranean, the East of Europe with the West – and with it wildlife keeps important corridors through the continent free. The border strip runs exactly 2,709 kilometers around Austria, holds the country together, connects it with neighboring countries and with the whole of Europe. It is not always immediately clear where Austria begins or ends. At Lake Constance, for example: Even though it borders three countries, Lake Constance knows no borders. A lake is a lake – and without borders, only those who land have to pay attention to whether they set foot on land in Austria, Germany or Switzerland. Unique in Europe. In contrast, Lake Neusiedl has had “difficult” times. In the truest sense of the word: In order to mark a clear border between Austria and Hungary in the middle of the lake, tens of thousands of tons of concrete were dumped into the lake in 1945 – until the tiny island “B-0” was created as a border and survey point.