FATHERLAND centres on the relationship between the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) – 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 a deep fracture within his own family. 

With FATHERLAND, Pawlikowski picks up where he left off with his award-winning IDA and COLD WAR, exploring – in his elliptic, distilled style – the themes of identity, family, love and guilt amid the turmoil and confusion of post-war Europe.

“Brevity, of course, is not a virtue in itself, but when “Fatherland” reaches its beautiful, pin-drop final scene, your mind will be spinning with ideas of home, grief, art, war guilt, memory, ideological conflict, and family bonds and traumas. Pawlikowski finds common ground with Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries” in his ageing artist’s road-trip ruminations on a life as full of frustration as fulfilment.” ~ Phil de Semlyen, TimeOut

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