Im Land der Wölfe

100 years after their extinction, wolves are returning to Germany, to a densely populated industrial country. They are returning because we allow them to. We decided that democratically. Their return is an expression of our changing approach to nature. We are ready to share the rule over the earth again, also because we realize that, as sole rulers, we will perish.

The film depicts the life of our new neighbors. The animals do not live in nature reserves in an enchanted wilderness, but among us. They find niches in the cultural landscape. They retreat into deserted mines, use our roads, cross highways and pass through villages. Their pups play with our waste and drink from the furrows left by machines in the forest. Sometimes wolves eat livestock. And many people have a deep-seated fear of them. The wolves challenge us – the authorities, science, agriculture, researchers, shepherds, experts, politicians, conservationists and many others act in a climate that is characteristic of the present day: polarizing and polemic debates about wolves. Yet they are merely fellow inhabitants, not man-eaters.