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 he felt parallels to today, Pawlikowski demurred.

“I am lost today,” he said. “I have no idea what period we are in. That’s why I did a period film.”

He added, “So I try to make films that kind of convey that life is complicated, and there’s no one narrative, and everyone is paradoxical in some way. And try and convey that in the simplest possible way, which cinema can do well through images, scenes, sound, sound …”

The film stars Hanns Zischler as Thomas Mann and Sandra Hüller as his daughter, Erika. It is the second movie Hüller has made in which she plays a German character during the period around the Second World War, and she immediately responded to a question about whether she feels guilt when playing Nazi-era German women.

“I understand that question,” she said. “Yes, I feel the guilt every day. And also, I never get bored of it, to feel the guilt, because it’s necessary in order to act right.”

Pawlikowski made “Fatherland” after “The Island,” a film he’d been working on for three years with Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, fell apart two weeks before the start of filming because of the actors strike. He was sent a script about Thomas Mann, and zeroed in on one specific moment in the writer’s life.

“I thought that could be an interesting film,” he said. “Not a kind of historical reconstruction, but if we can abstract everything away and focus on the … three characters, and the moment, and reduce what was a complicated long journey.

“And it’s a family story in it, an incredible historical context as well, which is always something that I like doing: telling history through people, through relationships.” He said he made significant to the actual events when Mann went to Germany: “The actual journey happened with Katia, the wife of Thomas Mann, who wasn’t dramatically so interesting, so we dismissed her and brought in Erica, (who) was very interesting.”

He added that a key death that takes place early in the film actually happened three months earlier, and said he added several other characters, including the grandsons of composer Richard Wagner. “Once you throw things in and start eliminating, adding, eliminating, condensing, you end up with something that’s very rich on a human level, historical level,” he said. “Something that can be told very simply.”

“Fatherland” is screening in the Main Competition in Cannes, and has received some of the most positive reviews of the festival so far.

Sharon Waxman contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: Look away now Keir Starmer.

As the UK Prime Minister’s fragile Labour government is plunged into chaos, Channel 4 has chosen a good day to unveil first looks of Steven Moffat‘s political drama Number 10.

The Sherlock co-creator has always been clear that he is not basing the Downing Street series on any particular PM, but it is certainly ramping up marketing at a timely moment.

Pics show Rafe Spall as Prime Minister Harry Douglas, Katherine Kelly as Chief of Staff Frances Telford and Jenna Coleman as Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Flynn. Kelly is even joined by 10 Downing Street’s longest-serving resident, Larry the cat.

Number 10’s synopsis reads: “There’s a Prime Minister in the attic, a coffee bar in the basement, and a wallpapered labyrinth of romance, crisis and heartbreak in-between. Set in the only terrace house in history with mice and a nuclear deterrent, it’s the only knock-through in the world where a hangover can start a war. The government will be fictional and unspecific, but the problems will be real. We’ll never know which party is in power, because once the whole world hits the fan it barely matters.”

The final sentence feels apt given that Starmer’s Labour administration is crumbling. Yesterday, one of his previously closest allies, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, resigned with a blistering broadside. Starmer is expected to face a leadership challenge from Streeting plus others after a disastrous set of local election results and facing intense competition from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Number 10 also stars Akshay Khanna (Murderbot, Critical Incident), Abigail Lawrie (No Escape, The Casual Vacancy), Laura Haddock (What It Feels Like For A Girl, Downton Abbey: A New Era), Jing Lusi (Red Eye, Crazy Rich Asians), Pierro Niel-Mee (Andor, Slow Horses), Rick Warden (Happy Valley, The Sixth Commandment), Joe Wilkinson (Afterlife, The Cookfields), Robyn Cara (Trying, Rainmaker), Richard Rankin (Rebus, Outlander), Rhiannon Clements (The Power of Parker, Vera), Patrick Baladi (The Office, Line of Duty), Shaun Prendergast (Wicked, Industry), Harry Baxendale (The Radleys, Shadow and Bone), Alex Macqueen (The Feud, Seven Dials Mystery), Sid Sagar (The Batman, Slow Horses), Sam Alexander (The Jury; Murder Trial, Sister Boniface Mysteries), Emer Kenny (Karen Pirie, The Curse) and Gary Lamont (Outlander).

Commissioned for Channel 4 by Gwawr Lloyd, Interim Head of Channel 4 Drama, the executive producers for Hartswood Films are Moffat and Sue Vertue with Lawrence Till (The Devil’s Hour, The Young Offenders) as the producer. Rachel Stone will be the co-producer. The director will be Ben Palmer (Douglas Is Cancelled, The Inbetweeners). 

Number 10 is produced in association with and will be distributed by ITV Studios.