Fatherland centres on the relationship between the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika, actress, writer and rally driver. In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, father and daughter embark on a challenging and emotional road trip in a black Buick taking them across a Germany in ruins – from US dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar. Returning home after sixteen years of exile in the US, Thomas Mann has to face not only a divided fatherland, but also deep fracture within his own family.

Cast & Crew
Producers: Edward Berger, Lorenzo Gangarossa, Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Mieli, Ewa Puszczyńska, Dimitri Rassam, Jeanne Tremsal
Director: Paweł Pawlikowski
Script: Henk Handloegten, Paweł Pawlikowski
Director of Photography: Lukasz Zal
Production Design: Marcel Slawinski, Katarzyna Sobanska
Music: Marcin Masecki
Sound: Lars Ginzel, Tarn Willers
Editing: Paweł Pawlikowski, Piotr Wójcik
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Anna Madeley
Production: Our Films, Extreme Emotions, Nine Hours, Chapter 2

Awards
Best Director, Cannes IFF, 2026

Pawel Pawlikowski
Filmmaker and academic. Born in Warsaw, Pawlikowski left Poland at 14. Lived in London, Germany and Italy, studied literature and philosophy at London and Oxford, making films since 1987. His filmography includes over dozen films. Among his awards are the European Film Academy Special mention (Dostoevsky’s Travels, 1991); Gran Prix, Documentary FF Marseille and Gran Prix, Festival dei Popoli, Florence (Serbian Epics, 1992); Grierson Award, Best British Documentary, 1995 and Golden Gate Award, San Francisco Film Festival (Tripping with Zhirinovsky, 1995); BAFTA Best Newcomer, 2001; Best Film Edinburgh FF, Best Film Thessaloniki FF, Best Film Gijon FF (Last Resort, 2000); Best Film Edinburgh FF, 2004, Best Screenplay Evening Standard Awards, 2005; BAFTA Best British Film 2005; Best Director Directors’ Guild of Great Britain, 2005 (My Summer of Love, 2004). Pawlikowski’s retrospectives have been held in San Francisco, 1995, La Rochelle, 2005, Bradford, 2005, Buenos Aires, 2007, Gijon, 2007, and London Riverside, 2008.
In 2015 his masterpiece Ida, won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film, becoming the first Polish film to do so. His most recent film, Cold War, earned him the Best Director Prize at the Festival de Cannes 2018 and three nominations for Best Director, Best Photography and Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards. It also won five awards at the 2018 European Film Awards including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenwriter.

Filmography
Open Space (1987, TV Series, doc., 1 ep.), From Moscow to Pietushki (1990, TV doc.,), Dostoevsky's Travels (1991, TV doc.), Serbian Epics (1992, TV doc.), Tripping with Zhirinovsky (1995, TV doc.), The Stringer (1998), Twockers (1998, TV short), Last Resort (2000), My Summer of Love (2004), The Woman in the Fifth (2011), Ida (2013), Cold War (2018), Muse (short, 2025), Fatherland (2026).