EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL: Fatherland (Germany)

The 13th European Film Festival South Africa is here. Over 10 days across 4 cities, audiences will have the opportunity to see some of the best films in current European cinema, fresh from Cannes, Venice, Berlin and beyond. Featuring award-winning films by giants of European cinema alongside bold new voices and starring Europe’s biggest names: this year's films follow families of all kinds — biological, chosen, broken, rebuilding — fighting to hold together and carve out a future against everything working to pull them apart.

ALL FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS WILL BE SCREENED WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES.

SEE THE FULL BIOSCOPE PROGRAM HERE

Fatherland (Germany)

Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. DocuDrama History. 1hr 22mins.

Polish born director Paweł Pawlikowski (Ida, Cold War) is one of modern cinema’s most precise creators of stark black and white imagery and pruned to its emotional essentials storytelling. Winner of the Best Director prize at this year’s Cannes Festival, Fatherland takes inspiration from the life of writer Thomas Mann and his talented literary family. It centres on the difficult relationship between the author and his daughter Erika as they make an emotionally fraught journey across a post-World War II Germany embroiled in the new Cold War in 1949. Featuring exceptional performances from Oscar nominated Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) as Erika, August Diehl as her beloved but troubled brother Klaus and veteran Hans Zischler as Mann it’s a short, sharp but provocative look at the past that has resonances for audiences now, trying to make sense of a similarly anxious era.

In Competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.