Festival Trailer for ‘Silent Friend’ Film with Tony Leung & Luna Wedler
by Alex Billington
September 8, 2025
Source: YouTube
“I would like to find proof of what plants sense.” Film Boutique has debuted a festival promo trailer for the film titled Silent Friend, the latest mesmerizing creation by award-winning Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi. This is the best film from the 2025 Venice Film Festival and it seriously deserved to win Golden Lion – most critics agree, but the jury did not. Silent Friend is set at a university centered around a giant, old ginkgo tree. The film follows three intertwined stories at different time periods, exploring the idea of trees & plants being sentient and interacting with people. In the heart of a botanical garden in a medieval university town in Germany stands a majestic ginkgo tree. This silent witness has observed over a century the quiet rhythms of transformation across three human lives… This stars Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Luna Wedler (who won a Venice award), Enzo Brumm, Sylvester Groth, Martin Wuttke, Johannes Hegemann, Rainer Bock, Marlene Burow, & Léa Seydoux. I fell hard for the film – it’s an instant all-timer favorite, everything about it is magical. This trailer features some of the wonderful score, but it’s still an experience you must have in theaters – getting pulled into this beautifully alluring, entrancing story of trees & humans.
Here’s the first festival promo trailer for Ildikó Enyedi’s film Silent Friend, direct from YouTube:
Tales told from the perspective of a lonely old tree standing in the middle of a botanical garden. In 2020 – a neuroscientist from Hong Kong, exploring the mind of babies, begins an unexpected experiment with the old tree. In 1972 – a young student is profoundly changed by the simple act of observing and connecting with a geranium. In 1908 – the university’s first female student discovers, using the lens of photography, sacred patterns of the universe hidden within the humblest of plants. We follow their clumsy attempts to connect — each one of them deeply rooted in their own present – as they are transformed by the quiet, enduring, and mysterious power of nature. The ancient ginkgo tree brings us closer to what it means to be human — to our longing to belong. Silent Friend is written and directed by acclaimed Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi, director of the films Büvös Vadász, Tamas and Juli, Simon the Magiciain, On Body and Soul, and The Story of My Wife previously. Produced by Reinhard Brundig, Monika Mécs, Nicolas Elghozi, Morgane Olivier, Meng Xie. This recently premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival (read our review); it next plays at TIFF, Vancouver, London. No US release is set yet – stay tuned for more. Who wants to watch?
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