Films

Official Oscar© Selection—Poland
Best Director, Cannes Film Festival

Academy Award-nominated director Pawel Pawilowski (Cold War) follows the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller, also in Rose) as they return to a divided Germany for the first time after World War II. Pawlikowski’s signature black-and-white austerity levels the emotional terrain for its viewers, presenting history with a stark clarity.

As father and daughter travel from Allied-occupied Frankfurt  to the Soviet-controlled Weimar, they are transfixed by memory, duty, and differing senses of historic responsibility. As their complicated familial dynamics play out in quiet private moments amidst a literary tour mobbed with adoring, if misunderstanding fans, echoes of their personal fissures are at play on a national scale.

“Observes history with wisdom, grace and caustic humour.”
-Peter Howell, Toronto Star

“Imposingly heavyweight, yet executed with rare lightness”
-Jonathan Romney, Screen International