Ildikó Enyedi – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

MOVIE OF THE WEEK May 8, 2026: SILENT FRIEND

May 3, 2026May 4, 2026 Jennifer Merin (Enzo Brumm, Gergely Pálosand, Ildikó Enyedi, lea seydoux, Luna Wedler, Marlene Burow, Silent Friend, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai

Like a prestigious literary novel, Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi’s deliberately paced drama Silent Friend deftly weaves together three stories that might seem, at first glance, to have little in common but are actually all variations on the same theme, connected by the same majestic, impassive ginko tree. Situated on the grounds of a German university, that tree — the titular silent friend — offers comfort and inspires curiosity over the course of more than a century.

Reviews

SILENT FRIEND – Review by Cate Marquis

April 28, 2026May 8, 2026 Cate Marquis (Enzo Brumm, Gergely Pálosand, Ildikó Enyedi, lea seydoux, Luna Wedler, Marlene Burow, Silent Friend, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai

A centuries-old, towering ginkgo tree in the botanical garden near the campus of a German university is the common thread connecting the stories of three scientists at that university, in Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi’s intriguing, visually-thrilling drama Silent Friend. Painterly photography of the lovely, tree-filled campus, supplemented by striking, artistic micro nature photography, gives this drama spanning three time periods a dreamy, ethereal quality. The film tells the stories of three scientists on the same campus, in different time periods but all doing experiments to advance the understanding of plants and communication between plant and humans.