In the heart of a botanical garden in the medieval university town of Marburg stands a majestic ginkgo tree, its roots reaching back over a century.
Under its watchful, silent presence, the stories of three individuals unfold across three different eras (1908, 1972, and 2020), each shaped by an encounter with the natural world around them.
A pioneering female botany student, a lovestruck young farmhand, and a neuroscientist adrift during the pandemic are drawn, in turn, into the tree’s orbit, their private struggles and awakenings quietly mirrored by the life force surrounding them.
“Strange, enrapturing, simultaneously vast and minute… [Silent Friend] is as sturdy and earthily rooted as the green specimens it pores over.” – Variety
“A true original, one of those cinematic events that, once seen, will not be easily forgotten.” – RogerEbert.com