Fatherland

Following the end of World War II, Nobel laureate Thomas Mann and his daughter, actress, author, and cabaret artist Erika, embark on a journey across a Germany in ruins—from Frankfurt in the American zone of occupation to Soviet-controlled Weimar. On the occasion of the Goethe bicentennial, people on both sides of the inter-German border long for words of solace, affirmation, and forgiveness from the nation's greatest storyteller. Courted and at times reviled amidst euphoric Wagner heirs and well-read generals, Germany's most celebrated writer confronts the quiet escalation of his own family's internal drama. It marks Thomas Mann's first return to his homeland since fleeing into exile before the war. A journey into the wounded German soul intended to heal—which turns, for Erika and the "Magician," as his children often called him, into a reckoning with their innermost selves.

Following the Academy Award-winning IDA and the widely acclaimed drama Cold War, Paweł Pawlikowski renders a grand German family history amidst the turmoil of the postwar era in breathtaking cinematic imagery. With tender relentlessness, Fatherland overlays the zero hour of German history with the finale of a family saga. An intense cinematic experience, anchored by an exceptional ensemble.