REEL | Tony Leung Makes A 'Silent Friend' x SIFF 2026

"I want to find out what plants sense."

1-2 Special / Films We Like

Silent Friend (aka Stille Freundin), visionary Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi's strange but affecting historical tale follows Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung as a Chinese neuroscientist studying a beguiling gingko tree on the grounds of a medieval German university town in the year 2020. It's a uniquely engrossing two-and-a-half-hour film about a professor befriending an old tree.

While his neurological research is on hold during the onset of the pandemic, his Dr. Tony Wong decides to keep busy by studying the aforementioned tree as well as the nature of understanding between nature and humans with the help of Léa Seydoux as a French botanist whom he consults over Zoom. Flashing in between this recent past are two other timelines. First, in 1908, we follow a young German feminist (Luna Wedler) aiming to be the university's first female student while studying in the botany department. Then, in 1972, research students (Enzo Brumm and Marlene Burow) monitor the interactions between plants and humans while navigating their own interpersonal emotions.

Enyedi captures the scientific language of communication between us and nature cinematically through her encapsulation of time and history. Leung is a finely chosen vessel of our collective humanity and curiosity wrapped around the peaceful understanding of trees. There's an intentionally clumsy but endearing quality to the way the film tries to capture human understanding through trees that expresses our own longing to belong.

Silent Friend screened at the 2026 Seattle International Film Festival as part of the Contemporary World Cinema program. It also screens at the VIFF Centre starting May 22nd.


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