Politically oriented documentary film where Manuelli casts a shadow on the Po Delta reclamation works launched in the fifties by the agrarian reform (and before that by The Fascist regime) and that for decades were considered as the miracle recipe for that area. From the seventies on, a series of studies started to show that the natural balance and the landscaper had been badly upset by the reclamation works. According to the director the whole process had not relieved neither misery nor unemployment or emigration flows. The film deeply investigates these phenomena and sets out the creation of a Natural Park likely to preserve a unique landscape.

This documentary film analyses the different sources of income of the local population in the Po Delta area: from saltworks – heavily reduced as a result of the reclamation process launched in the fifties – to ditch reeds collection along the Po river banks, from fishing in the traditional fishing plants called “lavorieri” (and illegal fishing in the valleys) to eels processing.

The story of the Boscone della Mesola told through the seasons and the rich flora and fauna including a herd of roughly one hundred wild native deers, as known as the Mesola deers, representing the last living population of the old deers of the Po Plain. They managed to survive thanks to a challenging project promoted by the National Corps of Forest Rangers.