20/08/2025 - The Academy Award-winning director’s new feature explores Thomas Mann’s post-war journey across a divided Germany

Actors Hanns Zischler (© Jennifer Fey) and Sandra Hüller (© Christian Hüller)

Acclaimed Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski, who won the Academy Award for Ida and received an Oscar nomination for Cold War, has begun principal photography on his latest feature, Fatherland. Shooting is currently taking place in Poland, Germany and Italy.

Set against the backdrop of a devastated Europe at the dawn of the Cold War, Fatherland follows renowned German novelist and Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika. A journalist, actress and rally driver, Erika accompanies her father on a road trip in a black Buick cruiser, travelling from US-dominated Frankfurt to Soviet-controlled Weimar. Their journey through the ruins of Germany becomes a reflection on family bonds, identity and guilt, while capturing the moral uncertainty of a continent divided by new ideological frontiers.

Thomas Mann is played by German actor Hanns Zischler (Munich, The Universal Theory), while Academy Award-nominated German star Sandra Hüller (The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall) portrays Erika. The ensemble cast also features August Diehl (A Hidden Life, Inglourious Basterds), Anna Madeley (Patrick Melrose, All Creatures Great and Small), Devid Striesow (All Quiet on the Western Front) and Theo Trebs (The White Ribbon, A Fish Swimming Upside Down).

The script for Fatherland is co-written by Pawlikowski and German writer-director Henk Handloegten. The film continues the thematic exploration of Ida and Cold War, delving into identity, guilt, family and love amid the moral confusion of post-war Europe. Ida won 70 international accolades, including five European Film Awards and the 2015 Academy Award for Best Foreign-language Film. Cold War earned Pawlikowski the Best Director Award at Cannes in 2018 and went on to secure three Oscar nominations, among many other plaudits.

For Fatherland, Pawlikowski reunites with several of his long-time collaborators, including Oscar-nominated cinematographer Łukasz Żal (Cold War), production designers Katarzyna Sobańska and Marcel Sławiński, costume designer Aleksandra Staszko and editor Piotr Wójcik.

The film is a German-Italian-Polish-French co-production. It is being staged by Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Mieli for Rome-based OUR Films, a Mediawan film production and financing company; Ewa Puszczyńska for Łódź-based Extreme Emotions; Jeanne Tremsal and Edward Berger for Nine Hours; and Dimitri Rassam for Chapter2. It is being made in collaboration with Lorenzo Gangarossa for Circle One. Global streaming service, production company and film distributor MUBI is serving as co-producer and will handle global distribution of the film.