Fatherland

Polish born director Paweł Pawlikowski (Ida, Cold War) is one of modern cinema’s most precise creators of stark black and white imagery and pruned to its emotional essentials storytelling. Winner of the Best Director prize at this year’s Cannes Festival, Fatherland takes inspiration from the life of writer Thomas Mann and his talented literary family. It centres on the difficult relationship between the author and his daughter Erika as they make an emotionally fraught journey across  a post-World War II Germany embroiled in the new Cold War in 1949. Featuring exceptional performances from Oscar nominated Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) as Erika, August Diehl as her beloved but troubled brother Klaus and veteran Hans Zischler as Mann it’s a short, sharp but provocative look at the past that has resonances for audiences now, trying to make sense of a similarly anxious era.