From Cannes to the Isar: This year the Munich Film Festival kicks off with the film “Vaterland,” a portrait of postwar Germany in ruins and the legendary Mann family. The leads Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, and August Diehl will present the film at the opening on June 27, as the festival announced.
The black-and-white drama from Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, which drew minutes-long standing ovations at Cannes, fuses political history with an intimate father-daughter relationship between the famed writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) as they traverse the war-torn Germany of 1949.
“‘Vaterland’ is truly European cinema, at once made in Germany and giving a glimpse into Germany,” the festival organizers Julia Weigl and Christoph Gröner said. “We’re honored to open our festival with this masterwork in the presence of the exceptional cast and to present it to Munich audiences for the first time.”
“Vaterland” opens nationwide in theaters on September 3, 2026 (Neue Visionen Filmverleih).
Marcy Ellerton
