#654 - Ildikó Enyedi and Tony Leung on Silent Friend

This week we’re excited to present a conversation with Silent Friend director Ildikó Enyedi and lead actor Tony Leung, moderated by TIME film critic Stephanie Zacharek. Silent Friend is currently playing daily at Film at Lincoln Center. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/friend Ildikó Enyedi, whose On Body and Soul won the Golden Bear at the 2017 Berlinale and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best International Feature Film, returns with a century-spanning triptych that moves from 1908 to the early months of the pandemic, unfolding around an ancient ginkgo in the botanical garden of Marburg University, the fixed witness to a century’s worth of passing faces. From a young woman forcing her way into the male-dominated scientific establishment at the dawn of the 20th century to idealistic lovers in the politically turbulent 1970s, Enyedi considers how consciousness itself is historically situated, mapping the incremental rewiring of how people think and connect over time. Tony Leung anchors the 2020 chapter with a characteristically subtle, deeply felt performance as a visiting neuroscientist stranded on campus during lockdown, whose attempt to measure the tree’s electromagnetic signals—guided remotely by a French plant biologist, played by Léa Seydoux—gradually opens into a meditation on perception itself.

You can listen to #654 - Ildikó Enyedi and Tony Leung on Silent Friend online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

#654 - Ildikó Enyedi and Tony Leung on Silent Friend is an episode from The Close-Up by Film at Lincoln Center Podcast.

This episode is 00:28:31 long.

This episode was published on May 29, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Close-Up when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.