In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) embark on a challenging and emotional road trip across a Germany in ruins – from U.S. dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar. Returning home after 16 years of exile in the United States, Thomas Mann has to face not only a divided fatherland, but also the deep fracture within his own family. As with prior films IDA and COLD WAR, director Paweł Pawlikowski constructs memorable setpieces as little cathedrals in luminous black-and-white. Winner of the Best Director Award at Cannes.
“Hüller is having a hell of a year… In FATHERLAND, it’s as though she alone were carrying the memories of the past decade and a half, years that so many others seem to have eagerly shucked off. She gives the kind of quietly grand performance you never forget, the kind that perfectly matches this quietly grand movie.” —Alison Willmore, Vulture “Damn near perfect… Immaculately performed by Zischler and especially Hüller, grounding the film throughout with an uncanny, expressive stillness.” —Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter “To watch Paweł Pawlikowski’s eloquent drama FATHERLAND is to commune with an artist in full command of his medium…. A beautifully derived piece of heartbreaking art.” —Robert Daniels, rogerebert.com “FATHERLAND is Pawlikowski in immaculate form. Successive watches will no doubt reveal greater and greater depths to behold, the film all but guaranteed to age like a fine wine.” —Luke Hicks, The Film Stage “At just 80 minutes it’s small but perfectly formed and packed with more ideas and infused with more heartbreak than most overlong arthouse epics.” —Kevin Maher, The Times
