Paweł Pawlikowski on Fatherland

This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 64th New York Film Festival with Fatherland director Paweł Pawlikowski, moderated by NYFF programmer Florence Almozini. An NYFF64 selection, Fatherland is now playing daily at FLC, courtesy of MUBI. Get tickets at filmlinc.org/fatherland Academy Award–nominated director Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War, NYFF56) specializes in narratively economical yet emotionally and philosophically expansive historical drama, and his latest film, which earned him a Best Director prize at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, might be his most potent and provocative yet. Set in the aftermath of World War II, Fatherland follows the Nobel Prize–winning novelist Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika Mann (Sandra Hüller) on a fictionalized 1949 road trip across a torn Germany that’s at once reeling from the destruction of battle and in profound denial about its evils and culpability. As they move from the West to the East, Pawlikowski uses Thomas and Erika’s fraught interpersonal dynamics and own familial tragedies to reflect upon a country facing an ever-evolving moral urgency. Cinematographer Łukasz Żal’s beautifully stark black-and-white frames and Hüller and Zischler’s expertly restrained performances combine to evoke a Europe gradually awakening to a new historical reckoning. The 64th New York Film Festival is presented in partnership with Rolex.