CHINA Edition
Hungarian Edition
Hungary has selected Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend as its official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards, returning the filmmaker to a category in which her previous feature, On Body and Soul, reached the final five nominees.
The decision was announced by Hungary’s National Film Institute on September 14. It gives the film a new awards-season platform after an international journey that has already included major festival prizes, theatrical distribution across several territories and a North American release.
The selection is the beginning of the Academy process rather than an Oscar nomination. The five nominated international features will be announced on January 21, 2027, ahead of the ceremony in Los Angeles on March 14. Hungary’s official submission was chosen by a six-member professional committee.
Three eras, one silent observer
Written and directed by Enyedi, Silent Friend unfolds across three periods in a German university town, linking its characters through an old ginkgo tree growing in the botanical garden.
Set in 1908, 1972 and 2020, the three stories follow people searching for different forms of connection—with one another, with the natural world and with scientific ideas that challenge familiar assumptions about plant life. The cast is led by Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Léa Seydoux, Luna Wedler and Enzo Brumm.
Earlier this year, the film’s Budapest premiere brought Enyedi and Leung together in the Hungarian capital for one of the production’s most significant domestic presentations.
The film began its international festival life at Venice in 2025, where it collected six awards. Among them were the FIPRESCI Prize from the international film critics’ federation and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Wedler’s performance.
Its profile has since extended beyond the festival circuit. Films Boutique secured international sales, while 1-2 Special acquired the North American rights and released the film theatrically in the United States in May 2026. The official Oscar submission now brings the film back into focus as the international awards season begins to take shape.
An international film with a substantial Hungarian core
Although Silent Friend was conceived as a European co-production and largely takes place in Germany, Hungarian filmmakers played central creative and technical roles throughout its production.
Gergely Pálos served as cinematographer, Károly Szalai edited the film and Mónika Mécs was one of its lead producers. The Hungarian team also included production designer Imola Láng, VFX supervisor Béla Klingl and casting director Irma Ascher.
The project brought together Germany’s Pandora Film, France’s Galatée Films and Hungary’s Inforg-M&M Film, in cooperation with China’s Rediance. Its mixture of 35mm, 16mm and digital cinematography was also supported by the NFI FilmLab in Budapest, which processed nearly 30,000 metres of camera negative and produced approximately 1,500 minutes of high-resolution digital material for the production.
That international structure is part of the film’s identity rather than a background detail: its cast, locations, financing and technical workflow cross several borders, while Enyedi’s direction provides the unifying creative voice.
The Oscar submission does not guarantee that Silent Friend will reach the shortlist or the final five. It does, however, send an internationally established film—and a director with previous experience of the race—into Hungary’s latest Academy campaign.
