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 a deep fracture within his own family.
Paweł Pawlikowski is a Polish filmmaker who began his career directing award-winning documentaries before moving into narrative features with Last Resort (2000) and My Summer of Love (2004), both BAFTA-winning films. His film Ida (2013) won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, the first Polish film to do so. It also won five European Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenwriter. Cold War (2018) premiered in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Pawlikowski was awarded the Best Director Prize, and later received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Director. It also won five awards at the 2018 European Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenwriter.