Ep. 392: Ildiko Enyedi on her new film Silent Friend, tree time, the everlasting serenity of Tony Leung, and theories of consciousness
The Last Thing I SawShow Notes
Ep. 392: Ildiko Enyedi on her new film Silent Friend, tree time, the everlasting serenity of Tony Leung, and theories of consciousness
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Silent Friend is the latest feature from filmmaker Ildiko Enyedi, whose On Body and Soul won the Golden Bear at the 2017 Berlinale and was an Oscar nominee. Like the Hungarian director's debut feature, My Twentieth Century (1989), Silent Friend is her latest ambitious work, spanning three time periods: 1908, when the first female student at a German university attempts to begin her studies; 1972, when a student finds the activities of a geranium far more intriguing than protests; and 2020, when a visiting professor (played by Tony Leung) conducts experiments around plant consciousness. What ties the eras together is a giant, beautiful gingko tree, in a film that’s equally a work of ideas, sensuous textures, and youthful experience. I had the pleasure of chatting with Enyedi during her visit to New York for the release of Silent Friend, and the conversation fairly quickly went into the realm of deep tree thoughts.
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Photo by Steve Snodgrass
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