Fungi are neither plant nor animal, and for the most part they are invisible to the human eye as they grow underground. Fungi are mobile and immobile at the same time and live through their huge root networks, the mycelium. After the atomic explosion in Hiroshima, the first living being to reappear was a matsutake mushroom. In situations and processes that require distributed intelligence and resilience, these strange dependable beings could become our new role models. This idea was put forth compellingly by anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing in 2015 in her multiaward- winning book “The Mushroom at the End of the World”. Following her arguments, THE MUSHROOM SPEAKS takes up this suggestion and in turn conducts its own anthropological observation of a peculiar species: mushroom experts and mushroom enthusiasts. The filmmaker engages them in conversation, and thus these protagonists take us into the forests of different parts of the world, where they share their knowledge with great openness and heartfelt warmth and show the projects that their fascination with mushrooms has inspired. Between rustling leaves and cracking twigs, after hours of searching, often one is left only with the joyful experience that the journey was the destination. But as a result of these various encounters, the impression arises that they all are part of a larger movement, one in which we as viewers are actively included. Through the film, insights about altruistic, growth-promoting strategies for neighboring plants or about the soil-regenerating power of mushrooms after an environmental catastrophe spread like spores in the cinema. These ideas stimulate the viewers’ imaginations and are rich with potential for transfer to their own much more human environment, which has been deeply infested by capitalism. Names and distinctions are smoke and mirrors, and only as the credits roll we discover the names of the film’s protagonists who have so generously shared their knowledge with us.