'Fatherland' Director Pawel Pawlikowski Says He Made a Period Movie Because 'I Am Lost Today'

Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski decided to make a film set in the divided Germany of 1949 because he doesn't understand the state of the world in 2026, the filmmaker said at a Friday press conference at the Cannes Film Festival. Pawlikowski, whose "Ida" won the 2013 Oscar for Best International Feature Film and who was nominated for Best Director for "Cold War" in 2019, came to Cannes with "Fatherland," which follows the German author Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika as they travel back to post-World War II Germany to receive an award in 1949. Asked at the press conference if . . .