Film

Fri, Dec 4, 7:00 p.m.

Followed by a conversation with Paweł Pawlikowski

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1

Member tickets available Nov 20

Explore category and above

All tickets available Nov 27

Fatherland. 2026. Poland/Germany/Italy/France. Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. Courtesy MUBI

Fatherland. 2026. Poland/Germany/Italy/France. Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. Screenplay by Pawlikowski, Henk Handloegten. With Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl. DCP courtesy MUBI. In German, English, French, Russian; English subtitles. 82 min.

Forming a trilogy with his previous postwar historical dramas Ida and Cold War, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland is precise, sharp, and damning. The Polish filmmaker, working with co-screenwriter Hendrik Handloegten (Berlin Babylon), the brilliant actors Sandra Hüller and Hans Zischler, and once again the masterful cinematographer Łukasz Żal, reimagines a brief but decisive chapter in the lives of the author Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika, when in 1949 they returned from exile in the United States to a Germany that lay in material and moral waste. Mann faces brutal recriminations for turning his back on the nation, even as he has opted to accept the Goethe Prize that will be bestowed on him by former Nazis (who have had miraculous changes of heart) and present-day Soviet party apparatchiks. After winning Best Director at Cannes for Fatherland, Pawlikowski rather knowingly premiered the film in Poland’s massive and imposing Palace of Culture and Science, completed in 1955 as a gift from Joseph Stalin.

Accessibility

Tickets are available to members at the Explore category and above beginning two weeks before each screening date. Additional tickets will be released to members and the general public one week before each screening date. Please note that space is extremely limited and tickets will be in high demand. Tickets can be reserved at moma.org/contenders beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET.

For the Contenders series, due to limited availability, members at the Explore category and above receive two free tickets per membership.

If a screening is sold out, a standby line will form one hour before the start time. If you are a ticket holder and arrive after the scheduled start time, we cannot guarantee entry.

This film accompanies The Contenders 2026.

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