Vaterland

After the end of the Second World War, Nobel Laureate in Literature Thomas Mann and his daughter, the actress, author, and cabaret artist Erika, embark on a journey through a Germany in ruins – from Frankfurt in the American occupation zone to Soviet-controlled Weimar. For the Goethe jubilee, people on both sides of the inner-German border are hoping for words of comfort, approval, and forgiveness from the greatest storyteller of all. Between euphoric Wagner heirs and literarily inclined generals, Germany's most important writer is courted and sometimes insulted, while the drama of his own family quietly escalates. It is the first time since the war that Thomas Mann returns to his homeland, from which he had once fled into exile. A journey into the wounded German soul, which is meant to heal – for Erika and the 'Magician', as his children often called Thomas Mann, it becomes a journey into the inner self.