PRODUCTION / FUNDING Germany / France / Hungary
Ildikó Enyedi working on her new feature, Silent Friend
by Teresa Vena
- The Hungarian director has already shot her drama film, featuring three different stories and starring veteran Hong Kongese actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai
Filming for Ildikó Enyedi's new feature took place in Germany in early summer. For her seventh full-length film, the Hungarian director is once again relying on the power of nature. She has written three different episodes that are linked by a common narrative element. All of the stories describe how plants influence and shape the lives of the film's protagonists. A tree will be one of the most important characters, too. In keeping with this theme, one of the film's main locations was the botanical garden in the central German city of Marburg. For other scenes, the team also visited Cologne, in the west of the country.
The screenplay for Silent Friend (working title) spans a period of almost 100 years. The three stories take place in different eras: 1908, 1972 and 2020. For the final sequence, the director teamed up with renowned Hong Kongese actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai (The Grandmaster [+see also:
trailer
film profile], In the Mood for Love). He plays a well-known neuroscientist who is travelling from his home in Hong Kong to Marburg. This is the first collaboration between the director and the actor. Enyedi's long-standing esteem for the veteran thesp was more than confirmed through this joint project, she says. “I was absolutely humbled that from the first read of the script, he became such a great partner in terms of thinking not just about his role, but also about the whole project.”
As for the rest of the cast, a clutch of European names have joined the project. Besides French actress Léa Seydoux (The Second Act [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], The Beast [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bertrand Bonello
film profile]), several German-speaking personalities with whom Enyedi has already worked on former projects have also boarded Silent Friend. They include Swiss actress Luna Wedler (who had a minor role in The Story of My Wife [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ildikó Enyedi
film profile]), and German actors Enzo Brumm, Sylvester Groth (The New End [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), Martin Wuttke (Berlin Alexanderplatz [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Burhan Qurbani
film profile]), Marlene Burow (Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emily Atef
film profile]), Jan Hofmann, Rainer Bock (Divided We Stand) and Johannes Hegemann (From Hilde, With Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andreas Dresen
film profile]). Behind the camera, the director has been working with cinematographer Gergely Pálos (Power [+see also:
film review
film profile], Summer to Come).
Silent Friend is a Pandora Film (Germany), Galatée Films (France) and Inforg-M&M Film (Hungary) production, made in co-production with ZDF/ARTE, ARTE France Cinéma and Rediance. It has been funded, among others, by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and the DFFF. The film is expected to be ready in 2025, and will be distributed by Mozinet in Hungary and by Pandora Film in Germany. Films Boutique is selling it worldwide.
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