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‘Fatherland’ Producer Ewa Puszczyńska On Making Ambitious Films

Published

3 months ago

May 21, 2026

Polish producer Ewa Puszczyńska has long been one of the country’s most recognized film producers who has steadily built a reputation for supporting some of the most ambitious cinema to come out of Europe across the last decade. She’s worked with directors such as Paweł Pawlikowski, David Lynch, Jonathan Glazer, Jesse Eisenberg and Agnieszka Smoczyńska to name a few but it’s her partnership with Pawlikowski that propelled her career to international status.

She first worked with the Polish filmmaker on his 2013 BAFTA and Oscar-winning film Ida and has since produced his triple Oscar-nominated film Cold War as well as this year’s Cannes competition title Fatherland, which is Pawlikowski’s first film in eight years. The title, which stars Hanns Zischler and Sandra Hüller, premiered at the Grand Théâtre Lumière on May 14 and received a six-minute ovation while Deadline’s review called the film “a masterclass in artistic discipline.”

Speaking in advance of the festival, Puszczyńska admits she and Pawlikowski now have established a creative shorthand and key to their ongoing collaboration has been “finding a common ground.”

“You have to be on the same level with the artistic work you are doing because you are going on this artistic journey together,” she says. “There can be tough moments when tensions are high, so you have to be unified towards the same goal.”

Fatherland, which Pawlikowski directs from a screenplay he co-wrote with Hendrik Handloegten, centers on the relationship between the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann (Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Hüller). Set in the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, the two embark on a challenging and emotional road trip in a black Buick, taking them across a Germany in ruins from U.S.-dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar. Returning home after 16 years of exile in the U.S., Mann has to face not only a divided fatherland, but also a deep fracture within his own family.

“It was a very fast-moving production,’ says Puszczyńska of the German-language film. “And it was quite a long-process of shooting because we were shooting across so many locations scattered across two regions of Poland and Germany. It was a lot of jumping from place to place because, as much as we could, the process was chronological. It was challenging.”

She credits her Polish crew as being “really well organized,” ensuring the 39-day shoot when as smoothly as possible. Fatherland had the same team and HoDs who worked across Ida and Cold War, and that, she says, was integral to getting such an ambitious project across the line. “It was like coming back to the family and coming back to the people who know Paweł,” she says. “It was really nice and I think everybody appreciated the way we work.”

Pawlikowski is multilingual Puszczyńska says this film really put the Polish director in his element. “Everybody was amazed that he was talking to the actors in German and then to the crew in Polish and constantly switching languages,” she says. “He goes into so much detail. It’s very woven and each element is in place. Everything is consistent and Paweł takes care of every single detail. Even when he writes the script, he puts links to music in the script so we can listen in the script and in the film later. He’s that kind of creator. He takes care of everything, and you can only be happy that you were a part of it and that you did your tiny job to make it happen.”

Throughout her wide-ranging and open conversation with Deadline, Puszczyńska is incredibly modest, often saying how “luck” has played a big part during her career. She credits the Polish Film Institute as being integral to building the nation’s infrastructure with its generous 30% tax credit. “They’ve really helped Polish producers go from minority productions to international ones,” she says.

She’s also optimistic about the growth in the local production industry, citing a surge of younger producers, such as Lava Films’ Mariusz Wlodarski (The Girl with the Needle), as key to the growth Poland’s production landscape.

But with a credit list that includes Lynch’s Inland Empire, Glazer’s Oscar-winning The Zone of Interest, and Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, which also earned two Oscars, it’s hard to feel like Puszczyńska’s career is down to just luck.

“I choose projects that deal with subjects that are important for me as a human being, and as a woman,” she says. “It needs to grab me in my gut. Even if it’s not perfectly written yet and there’s time to develop it, I think, ‘Let’s go on this journey together.’”

She continues: “It doesn’t matter which language, whether it’s German or Polish or English. Fatherland is a Polish film but it’s a subject that is very contemporary and can translate to what’s going on now in the world. Even if it’s German language, it speaks to me and it speaks to people and it’s part of European culture. Thomas Mann is part of European culture, and he has a lot of admirers in Poland, so language doesn’t matter.

“But what I don’t like is foreign projects that come to me at the very last stage and are just missing some money. I like to be a real partner and work together.”

First steps & what’s next

Puszczyńska knew from a young age that she wanted to work in the creative sector and recalls often putting photos and illustrations alongside her essays in school. She became skilled in languages and before landing a job at renowned Polish outfit Opus Film, she worked for a translation company that was responsible for putting subtitles and voiceovers to projects. “It was a really interesting job because I watched a lot of films and then had to figure out how to put the English into Polish so that people could understand, so it was a very good exercise.”

Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg in 'A Real Pain' — Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg in ‘A Real Pain’

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She spent some time translating on international shoots coming into Poland from before she was brought aboard a commercial job for BMW North America which Opus Film was producing for the company locally. Initially, the plan was for cars to drive across the frozen lakes in Poland but because the winter had been mild, the lakes weren’t frozen enough for the shoot.

“We were on the verge of losing this job,” she says. “And I liked this job. So, I said, ‘Let’s subcontract this job with our supervision somewhere up in Northern Europe.”

The project ultimately ended shooting in Finland, which she oversaw during a brutally cold winter, and that savvy approach landed her a full-time job at Opus Film, where she spent nearly two decades of her career. She cut her teeth as a line producer on Lynch’s 2006 title Inland Empire after the late director, who was a frequent attendee at Poland’s Camerimage Film Festival, decided to shoot part of the film in the country.

“It was winter and it was very cold, but it was beautiful,” she recalls. “There was no script and he was scribbling something on paper the night before and I was begging him to give me something, so I had time to prepare. It was really challenging but it was a great challenge.”

She produced Pawilkowski’s Ida and Cold War through Opus before leaving the outfit 10 years ago to set up her own shingle Extreme Emotions. Since then, she has built a reputation for supporting a variety of international directors who explore complex and human stories, often rooted in history and identity such as The Zone of Interest and A Real Pain. She’s just coming off the back of producing Polish HBO series Women’s Hell, directed by Anna Maliszewska and also produced Ido Fluk’s German music-drama Köln 75, which premiered at Berlinale last year.

“I’m very lucky to work with great directors and watch their talents and the way they work,” she says. “But our focus is always to be honest with ourselves, honest with the film and really deliver the best we can and the best coming out from our talents.”

Up next, Puszczyńska has two titles she’s hoping to get off the ground: A Japanese-Polish-Canadian co-production dubbed Idiot Son, inspired by the life of Japan’s Nobel Prize-winning novelist and essayist Kenzaburō Ōe, and a yet-unnamed Yiddish-language project that is at script stage.

“I’m very careful and picky about the projects I chose because when I choose them, I really give my time and heart to work on them,” she says. “I can’t just treat it like another film – I give it my all and this really the only way to go.”

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Obama Relives Tan Suit Debacle In ‘Life, Larry & Pursuit of Unhappiness’

Published

31 minutes ago

August 9, 2026

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As Larry David‘s comedic trip through U.S. history comes to an end, he took credit for one of the nation’s more recent presidential scandals.

On Friday’s season finale of the HBO sketch comedy miniseries Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, President Barack Obama made a surprise appearance as himself in a sketch set in 2014, as David advised him to wear the now-infamous, outrage-inducing tan suit during his live press conference on military response to ISIS.

Following some banter on how the POTUS avoids stains, David accidentally spills juice on Obama’s suit jacket when he leaves the room. When the 44th president returns, the comedian recommends he wear the tan suit that Obama planned on taking it to Turin for NATO Summit, for “a daytime event, it’s outdoors, a little more casual.”

“First of all, it’s a gorgeous suit,” David declared. “And this is casual Friday!”

“It is a great suit,” admitted Obama, as David told him, “Oh boy, oh boy. I think this is the move. … Old lips won’t let you down. You’ll thank me!”

As Obama models the look, David gives him his signature, “Pretty good! Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.”

“You sure about this?” asks Obama, as David assures him, “Never been more sure about anything in my life. People are going to be talking about this for a long, long time.”

Obama’s cameo in the finale comes as David marks the United States Semiquencentennial with the seven-part sketch comedy limited series, which recounts major events in U.S. history through the comedian’s signature observational humor.

David’s longtime Curb Your Enthusiasm partner Jeff Schaffer, who serves as an executive producer on Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, previously told Deadline that Obama, who produced under his Higher Ground banner, reached out to his buddy David to ask if he’d be interested in making the show to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.

“When you’re doing a show about American history, you want to do it warts and right now we have this orange saggy wart that we wish would go away,” said Schaffer. “But the nice thing about having President Obama produce this and be a part of it is that this country’s had a lot of fuck ups, we’ve seemed to have learned very little, but we’re still moving forward sometimes, and then we move back a little bit, but we always move forward again. While Larry’s pointing out a lot of the steps back, the President is telling us we can still step forward.”

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Matthew McConaughey Performs “Quill” From ‘Rivals of Amziah King’ — Watch

Published

2 hours ago

August 9, 2026

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Matthew McConaughey shows off his vocal skills (and some hidden banjo talents) with his latest role in The Rivals of Amziah King.

On Friday, Lakeshore Records released the single and music video for “Quill” from the original motion picture soundtrack, performed by the Oscar-winning and co-star Ben Hardesty, also featuring Miranda Zickler, Angelina LookingGlass and Andrea Pister.

Set in the backwoods of Oklahoma, The Rivals of Amziah King follows the musically gifted Amaziah King (McConaughey) and his bluegrass-playing band of misfits while overseeing the premier honey-making operation in town. When Amaziah’s estranged foster daughter unexpectedly returns, he leaps at the chance to reconnect and create a family business. But the honey game is ruthless, and Amaziah’s rivals threaten to destroy everything he has built.

Premiering Aug. 14 in theaters, the Andrew Patterson-written-and-directed drama also stars Angelina LookingGlass, Cole Sprouse, Jake Horowitz, Tony Revolori and Kurt Russell.

Producers are David Heyman, Teddy Schwarzman, Jeffrey Clifford, Michael Heimler, James Montague and Will Greenfield.

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Jane Schoenbrun On Tackling “Toxic Soup” Of Slasher Genre In ‘Camp Miasma’

Published

2 hours ago

August 9, 2026

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With their latest directorial outing, Jane Schoenbrun used subtle pieces of nostalgia to deconstruct the slasher genre.

The Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma writer/director explained to Deadline that they wanted to create “a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary,” noting the frequent symbolism of candy and junk food as providing an atmosphere “that’s actually safe” while diving into a horror movie or exploring sexuality after trauma.

“There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe,” said Schoenbrun, who is non-binary. “Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, ‘Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.’”

In Schoenbrun’s latest film, Hannah Einbinder stars as queer director Kris, who is tapped to helm a new installment of the long-running Camp Miasma horror franchise. While courting Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the actress who played the “final girl” in the original film, to reprise her role, the pair spirals into a psychosexual frenzy as the slasher’s killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), comes to life.

Acknowledging the problematic trans representation of horror films like Psycho (1960), Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995), Schoenbrun admitted the genre has been “catnip to me since I was 10 years old,” and they jumped at the chance to direct their own.

Jane Schoenbrun at the — Jane Schoenbrun attends the ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ premiere on Aug. 5, 2026 in New York City.

“So many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals … And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy,” they explained.

“But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants,” said Schoenbrun. “It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.”

Read on about Jane Schoenbrun’s love letter to the slasher genre with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, now playing in theaters.

DEADLINE: It was really fun to see the slasher genre through your eyes. Tell me about finding inspiration in that genre and “final girls.”

JANE SCHOENBRUN: I mean, it was the easiest thing in the world because it’s just one of those genres that has been catnip to me since I was 10 years old. I just raided the horror section of the video store as a kid from an age when I really shouldn’t have been doing that, like in 5th grade, I watched in the span of about one week, every Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I think that I was always drawn to movies and really anything entertainment where it felt forbidden in some way, like the thing on the tape, how is that even allowed? And that’s the thing that I love about a lot of my favorite slashers. Don’t get me wrong, I love like brutal ones, like I love Texas Chainsaw, that’s a nasty movie at its core, and that’s what’s so special about it. But so many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals of, OK, what’s the most outrageous way that like these like dumb kids can get killed? But watching it, it’s not about fear a lot of the time, it’s about joy and celebration. And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy. But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants, whether that be Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill or Sleepway Camp or Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface in drag. It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.

‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ (2026)

DEADLINE: I’m curious about the symbolism of all the processed junk food and the chandelier of wrappers.

SCHOENBRUN: The junk food in the movie, I forget when it found its way in there. It’s like so much of the movie is about, like I said, ritual, about being in a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary, whether that be Kris [Hannah Einbinder] in bed, with, you know, with Raisinets and the popcorn, watching a schlocky horror movie, or the two characters learning how to be present and enjoy sex after a lot of trauma. There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe. Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, “Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.”

DEADLINE: And one thing I really love—I just feel like it’s a theme in your work—is how it depicts the way media and entertainment influence us. Why does that inspire you?

SCHOENBRUN: I think it comes from a fascination and sensitivity to the complex relationship between what we think of as fiction and what we think of as reality, which we tend to, as a society, think of as pointing in one direction. Like, reality dictates fiction, not vice-versa, but when you actually look at the way the world works, it’s like one echoes off the other. And I think a complicated, sometimes terrifying and sometimes beautiful way, where the fiction, the cultural norms, the things we grow up looking at on our screens, the roles that we’re told people play, they kind of inspire us to create reality. There’s something liberating when you start thinking in that way. I think it’s a way of thinking that we as a culture, could do a lot more of. To think about the idea of fiction inspiring reality just as much as reality is inspiring fiction, is a potential path to liberating us from this hellscape that they’re telling us is the only way the world can be.

Gillian Anderson in ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ (2026)

DEADLINE: And I know you have the Secretary reading. Tell me what it’s been like prepping for that and why you all chose that movie.

SCHOENBRUN: I mean, that was such a huge influence on on Miasma. There just aren’t that many fun and funny movies about deviant sex. And just the way that movie is like feather light while talking about really raw and taboo things, it is just really inspiring to me. And the dynamic between those two main characters is definitely one that had a lot of influence on on Kris and Billy’s [Gillian Anderson] relationship in Miasma. And it’s already to me a very queer movie in its way, but having Gillian reading the James Spader part and Hannah reading the Maggie Gyllenhaal part, I think it’s just gonna be like a very unique joy. Honestly, we’ve been prepping a little bit, but I think it’s just gonna be about getting up there and feeling the chemistry of it all, and just letting these folks who we have all gotten to know each other really, really well, but we haven’t actually done anything wacky and creative like that in a while, like as a reunion, it’s gonna be a real blast, I think.