In the summer of 1949, Nobel laureate Thomas Mann makes his uneasy return to a shattered Germany after 16 years in exile. Escorting him across a landscape divided into American and Soviet zones is his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller in another formidable performance), who serves as driver, gatekeeper, and conscience to a literary giant unwilling to confront his own political compromises. As they navigate ruined cities and hostile crowds, the journey lays bare the unresolved fractures between a famous father and the fiercely loyal daughter who refuses to let him off the hook.
Following Ida and Cold War, Paweł Pawlikowski returns to exquisite black-and-white cinematography (again by the talented DOP Łukasz Żal) to tackle the moral wreckage of postwar Europe. The drama thrives on the prickly, unvarnished realities of the father-daughter dynamic, including Erika’s biting honesty against Thomas’s towering self-importance. Pawlikowski, who was awarded Best Director at Cannes, operates at the height of his visual precision to deliver a piercing study of complicity, vanity, and the impossibility of true homecoming.
Best Director Prize (ex-æquo), Cannes 2026
Presented by
Supported by
Media Partner
Hanns Zischler, Sandra Hüller, August Diehl, Anna Madeley, Devid Striesow
Italy/Poland/
Germany/France
2026
In German, French, English, and Russian with English subtitles
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Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Efe Cakarel, Michael Weber, Viola Fügen, Andrea Scarso, Timo Argillander, Ognjen Dizdarevic, Ilaria Zazzaro, Luke Rivett, Matthieu Prada, Julien Delajoux, Matthias Nicodeme
Producer
Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Mieli, Ewa Puszczynska, Jeanne Tremsal, Edward Berger, Dimitri Rassam, Lorenzo Gangarossa
Screenwriter
Paweł Pawlikowski, Henk Handloegten
Cinematography
Łukasz Żal
Editor
Piotr Wójcik, Paweł Pawlikowski
Production Design
Katarzyna Sobańska, Marcel Sławiński
Original Music
Marcin Masecki
Pawel Pawlikowski
Paweł Pawlikowski is a Polish filmmaker who began his career directing award-winning documentaries in Britain before moving into narrative features with Last Resort (2000) and My Summer of Love (2004), both BAFTA winners. His film Ida (2013) won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film — the first Polish film to do so. It also won five European Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenwriter. Cold War (2018) premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Pawlikowski was awarded the Best Director Prize and later received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Director.
Filmography: The Stringer (1998); The Woman in the Fifth (2011); Ida (2013); Cold War (2018)
Photo by Aleksandra Modrzejewska-Mitan
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