Fatherland Special Presentations

In the summer of 1949, Nobel laureate Thomas Mann makes his uneasy return to a shattered Germany after 16 years in exile. Escorting him across a landscape divided into American and Soviet zones is his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller in another formidable performance), who serves as driver, gatekeeper, and conscience to a literary giant unwilling to confront his own political compromises. As they navigate ruined cities and hostile crowds, the journey lays bare the unresolved fractures between a famous father and the fiercely loyal daughter who refuses to let him off the hook.

Following Ida and Cold War, Paweł Pawlikowski returns to exquisite black-and-white cinematography (again by the talented DOP Łukasz Żal) to tackle the moral wreckage of postwar Europe. The drama thrives on the prickly, unvarnished realities of the father-daughter dynamic, including Erika’s biting honesty against Thomas’s towering self-importance. Pawlikowski, who was awarded Best Director at Cannes, operates at the height of his visual precision to deliver a piercing study of complicity, vanity, and the impossibility of true homecoming.

Best Director Prize (ex-æquo), Cannes 2026

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