Cannes 2026: 'Fatherland' is a Mirror to Our Own Morally Bankrupt Era

After a 7-year hiatus, Paweł Pawlikowski — one of the most prominent Polish filmmakers working today — returns to the Cannes Film Festival with a concise drama that elegantly caps off his unofficial black-and-white trilogy. He began this thematic journey with Ida (2013), a haunting exploration of a young Polish nun unearthing her family's Holocaust tragedy; then continued with Cold War (2018 - also at the Cannes Film Festival), charting a doomed romance across the fractured landscape of post-war Poland. Now, Pawlikowski steps back into the ashes of mid-century Europe with Fatherland, concluding a study of historical trauma with a wonderfully restrained, politically charged narrative. Set in 1949 against the backdrop of the newly partitioned Germany, the film follows Nobel laureate Thomas Mann (played by Hanns Zischler) as he is invited to receive the Goethe Prize: first in American-occupied Frankfurt, then in Soviet-controlled Weimar. Accompanying him as his personal assistant is his daughter, Erika (Sandra Hüller). Having fled the Nazi regime for the US in 1933, the trip marks the author's long-awaited return to his homeland after 16 years. The film opens with Erika on the phone, trying to coax her brother Klaus (August Diehl in a small role) into joining their trip. Their on-screen dynamic draws from a fascinating real-life history: the remarkably close siblings famously entered into reciprocal […]