Moving History - VATERLAND

HOMELAND

Poland, Germany, Italy, France 2026, Dir.: Paweł Pawlikowski, Feature Film, 82 min.

In 1949, the émigré writer and Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann returns to Germany for the first time: it is already a divided homeland, where the Cold War is beginning to take shape. The occasion is a two-part awards ceremony: at St. Paul’s Church, Thomas Mann is presented with the Goethe Prize by the City of Frankfurt am Main; shortly thereafter, he receives the Goethe National Prize at the German National Theater in Weimar. In light of this double honor, the film reflects on how, in West Germany and the Soviet Occupation Zone, the architects of the new orders in both East and West invoke the foundations of German culture—while simultaneously repressing German crimes and new injustices. Thomas Mann was accompanied by his wife Katja on his historic visits—the film, however, places his daughter Erika by his side. Through this, Paweł Pawlikowski highlights the divergent attitudes of father and daughter toward the burden of the past. The shared grief of father and daughter over Erika’s brother Klaus Mann, who takes his own life during these days, is intertwined with despair over German guilt and doubts about a fresh start.