ILDIKO ENYEDI | GERMANY, HUNGARY, FRANCE | 2025 | 147 MIN | GERMAN, ENGLISH
Like PFF26‘s On Body and Soul slaughterhouse setting, Ildikó Enyedi once again finds love in the most unusual of places in her mesmerizing and hypnotic stunner, Silent Friend. Through three thematically rich stories—connected by their proximity to the gaze of an ancient gingko tree at a small German university—Enyedi explores the seen and unseen worlds that drive the human and plant spirits. In 1908, Grete was the first accepted female student to the prestigious university. Despite her obvious talents, she faces a barrage of sexism from her superiors as she embarks on her botany studies. In 1972, as the counterculture movement wanes, a social outcast connects with classmate Gundula over her experiment to prove that plants can sense the invisible, like the germinating sexual tension between the two. Finally, in 2020, neurologist Tony Wong (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) finds himself stuck on campus during the COVID lockdown as he conducts elaborate experiments on the gingko tree under the suspicious watch of the deserted campus’s only other inhabitant. Filled with wonder and a show-stopping, visually stimulating montage that echoes Kubrick’s starchild formation, Enyedi once again proves why she is one of the most exciting and unique voices in international cinema.
Cast: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Luna Wedler, Enzo Hermann Brumm, Léa Seydoux
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