On the morning of November 15, the final event of GRIFF Industry 2025, the Golden Rooster Film Academy’s Ildikó Enyedi Master Class, took place as scheduled. Peking University scholar Dai Jinhua joined the Hungarian director for an in-depth conversation. The venue was full, and several hundred film fans and young filmmakers followed the discussion with keen interest. The two speakers answered that interest with a dense and candid exchange, and together with everyone present they created two hours of a “Golden Rooster Moment“.
Ildikó Enyedi’s latest film, Silent Friend, stars Chinese actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai. On November 14, the film had its China premiere at the Golden Rooster festival. The conversation opened with Enyedi’s collaboration with Tony Leung, and Dai Jinhua praised the intellectual presence he conveys with precision on the big screen. Enyedi called Leung a master actor whose performance, for her, goes beyond regional labels. She also revealed that Leung’s character in Silent Friend, Tony, was written specifically for him.
The conversation then turned to filmmaking. Enyedi’s films regularly break through the wall of reality and move freely between the real and the imagined. Dai Jinhua offered her reading: “Enyedi’s films do not keep shifting between imagination and reality; each of her films creates a reality that belongs only to cinema“. Enyedi agreed: “I don’t separate imagination from reality“, she said, calmly setting out her view of the world. “What we call reality also lives in our imagination, in our dreams, hopes and memories“. Enyedi said she wants to build a space for viewers to observe and feel; entering that space is like entering a playground or an amusement park, where each person can have an experience of their own. The exchange helps in understanding Enyedi’s work and gives young directors working in film art a way of thinking about their craft.
From her debut feature My 20th Century, winner of the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, to On Body and Soul, winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, and now Silent Friend, Enyedi has used a natural, truthful touch to work a kind of magic with space and time. Borrowing a popular expression, Dai Jinhua said Enyedi has a remarkable imagination, citing On Body and Soul, in which two slaughterhouse workers have the same dream every night. Unexpectedly, Enyedi said she has invented nothing in her films; her story ideas all come from research in neuroscience, cognitive science and related fields. This way of generating ideas offers young directors a model for drawing on other disciplines.
As both speakers are women, the conversation turned to Enyedi’s experience as a female director. “When I was at film school, I was the only woman in my class, and when I started working, 90% of the crew were men. I was surrounded by men,” Enyedi said, adding that her optimism helped her. She stressed that she has always focused on the work itself. Her words are likely to encourage the many women working in film who attended.
During the Q&A, asked about international co-productions and financing, Enyedi said she values creative autonomy most and gives priority to funding sources that guarantee it. The conversation was an exchange of creative experience and artistic ideas, and it restated the importance of cinema: film remains the best way to touch the soul in our time.
The day was also Enyedi’s 70th birthday. At the end of the event, the Golden Rooster Film Academy presented her with a birthday cake themed on Silent Friend, with good wishes and the hope of meeting filmmakers again next year.
