Silent Friend had its world premiere at this year’s 82nd Venice International Film Festival.
No spoilers
Can human beings truly connect with plants? How sentient could nonhuman life be? Silent Friend, the greenery-scented film offers an answer to these questions in a reflective, tender, yet profound manner.
Winner of the FIPRESCI Critics’ Prize at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, Silent Friend has just screened at the 2025 BFI London Film Festival. Written and directed by Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi, it follows a ginkgo tree in the heart of a botanical garden at an old German university through three generations in different eras: 1908, 1972, and 2020.
Shot in 35mm, the 1908 story follows Grete, a determined young woman who fights to join a prestigious university’s botany department despite the gender barriers of her time. In 1972, filmed in 16mm, Gundula conducts an experiment on plant perception with her reserved housemate Hannes, their scientific collaboration charged with unspoken desire. In 2020, shot digitally, Professor Tony Wong, a neurologist at the same institution, explores the unseen connections between human and plant consciousness.
Centred on the natural world and its flora, the plots are rather simple. Yet Enyedi certainly knows how to enchant the spectators with meditative imagery, mysterious and sacred sound design, and a story that becomes an extraordinarily beautiful reflection on humankind’s relationship with botanicals. Instead of seeking narrative links between the three different stories, it is better to feel the film’s rhythm, observe the plants and our place within nature, and move in sync with their pace. It reminds us of the unfathomable depth of nature, calling for humility, anti-anthropocentrism, and respect for the living world.
The true power of Silent Friend lies in how it constructs the quiet magic of plant intelligence through imagery. Without telling us how it feels to be a tree, the camera simply invites us to observe: abundant close-ups and micro shots of trunks, branches, leaves, veins, and sprouts from a stately world where you can almost hear the murmurs of life itself. Meanwhile, the regular long pauses on flowers and the constant high-angle shots from the perspective of the ginkgo tree remind us that they observe us the same way we observe them.
When the human characters speak to plants, the film itself begins a conversation with its audience: humankind has never been the protagonist of this world but a guest of our silent friends.
Silent Friend stars Luna Wedler (Grete), Marlene Burow (Gundula Marlene Burow), Enzo Brumm (Hannes) and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Tony Wong).
Image credits: Film stills from Silent Friend (2025), courtesy of Film Boutiques.
