Paweł Pawlikowski releases postwar drama Fatherland

Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski has released his latest film, Fatherland, a black-and-white historical drama set in 1949 Germany. The film, which recently won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, follows Nobel Prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika as they travel through a fractured, postwar nation.

Set against the backdrop of a Germany divided between Soviet and U.S. influence, the narrative depicts Mann’s return to his homeland to receive the Goethe Prize. The story explores themes of identity, memory, and the moral complexities of a country attempting to reconcile with its recent past. The film features Hanns Zischler as Mann and Sandra Hüller as Erika.

Pawlikowski, known for his concise storytelling in films such as Ida and Cold War, maintains his signature style with a runtime of approximately 82 minutes. The film examines the tension of a nation suspended between competing geopolitical ideologies, described in the film as a choice between ‘Stalin and Mickey Mouse’.