Over a century, this silent witness has observed the quiet rhythms of transformation across three human lives. 1908, the university’s first female student discovers that her sex is a barrier to entry into a male-dominated field and to society at large. 1972, a young student is profoundly changed by the simple act of observing and connecting with a geranium. 2020, a neuroscientist from Hong Kong suspects a deep relationship between what is seen and unseen. Over the span of ages, the incredible link between these humans goes unnoticed except by the tree, to which they are all spiritually connected.
»What is it like to be a tree? We don’t know. So, we won’t show it. Instead, we show human curiosity, touchingly imperfect attempts of connecting, of acknowledging the “other” and accepting that for them we are the mysterious “other”. We show glimpses through more than 100 years of the botanical garden of a university. A place that was always the hub of free and limitless human curiosity, of science. In times when it is so dangerously questioned and attacked, we would also like to draw attention not only to the importance, but also the beauty and the naive, daring force of scientific research.« (Ildikó Enyedi)
Ildikó Enyedi
Born in 1955 in Budapest, where she studied film directing. Between 1977 and 1985, she was a member of the art group "Indigo" and the Béla Balázs Studio. After numerous experimental and narrative shorts, she has so far made eight feature films. Her debut feature, My 20th Century (1989), received the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and the film On Body and Soul (2017) won the Golden Bear.