Green networks at Zurich Film Festival

“What if trees observe us in the same way that we observe them?” – This question is posed by a neuroscientist in the new film Silent Friend, which Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi presented at the Zurich Film Festival. At the heart of this film is a majestic ginkgo tree located in the botanical garden of the university town of Marburg. As a silent witness, it has witnessed changes over the course of three human lifetimes for over a century. In 1908, the university’s first female student (Luna Wedler) discovers patterns hidden in plants with the help of photography. In 1972, a young student (Enzo Brumm) gains new insights by observing a geranium. In 2020, a neuroscientist from Hong Kong (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) launches an unconventional experiment with the old tree.

 

Each of them is rooted in their own present and tries in different ways to connect with this ancient ginkgo tree. “All three main characters are outsiders. The plants in the botanical garden are also outsiders, because they are lonely souls,” explains Ildikó Enyedi. “There is no plant more lonely than the ginkgo tree, which is practically extinct.” 180 million years ago, various species of ginkgo, such as the fan-leaf tree, were widespread throughout the world. In Asia, there are still some of these prehistoric tree species that are over 1,000 years old. A ginkgo can reach a height of up to forty meters in a hundred years. Since ginkgos are dioecious, there are male and female plants that only reach sexual maturity between the ages of 20 and 35.

 

 

“The first experiment in communicating with plants took place in the 1970s, when I was a teenager,” says the filmmaker, who was so fascinated by it that she continued to pursue the subject. It has now been scientifically proven that plants can communicate with each other because they are connected by a vast underground network through which they exchange information. Trees can exchange information about water, nutrients, and unevenly distributed resources via the Wood Wide Web, a vast network of fungal mycelium and tree roots. In this way, a large tree can, for example, nourish a seedling growing in its shade. Thousands of kilometers of fungal threads run beneath every square meter of soil.

 

“I wrote the first draft of the script ten years ago,” says Ildikó Enyedi, "and put it aside and made two other films. Then I picked up this project again and worked intensively on it for three years.” To show the reproductive process of the ginkgo, she acquired very rare microscopic footage from Japan showing the movements of sperm, which are similar to those of humans. "To show what is happening in the world of plants, I chose a tree as the protagonist. However, trees have a completely different lifespan. That’s why I wanted to capture certain moments in a century in which there have been major changes for humanity.”

 

 

French documentary filmmaker Vincent Munier delves into the fascinating world of the forest in his new work Le Chant des Forêts. Together with his son and father, he embarks on a journey into the forests of the Vosges, where lynxes, bears, and deer live in the wild. Vincent Munier’s aim was not only to capture breathtaking images of nature with his camera, but also to convey the sounds and whispers of the forest.

 

“A visual nature poem that connects generations and their love of the forest and allows us to observe native animals up close,” says Reta Guetg, deputy director of the Zurich Film Festival. “I was only too happy to accept this invitation to slow down with an immersive sound experience.”

 

Photos: © GFS, Pandora Film