Wednesday, May 20Wednesday, May 20Paweł Pawlikowski’s film *Fatherland* premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it was recognized as an early contender for the Palme d’Or. The film is described as a "measured, profound, and deeply moving" black-and-white reflection on identity, family, love, and guilt, set against the fractured backdrop of post-war Europe. It centers on [Thomas Mann’s](en.wikipedia.org) 1949 tour of Germany, where the exiled Nobel laureate grapples with political tensions, personal tragedy, and his strained relationship with his daughter, played by Sandra Hüller. Hüller’s performance is highlighted for its "bayonet of intelligence," bringing emotional depth to the film’s exploration of exile and artistic legacy .
The film is noted for its "impossibly elegant, poised" direction and cinematography by Łukasz Żal, which contrasts the characters’ internal turmoil with the film’s restrained aesthetic. *Fatherland* examines themes of betrayal, the impossibility of returning home, and the secondary role of an artist’s children in their legacy, all while evoking Thomas Mann’s invocation of Goethe’s apolitical humanism .
At Cannes, *Fatherland* was one of the festival’s most anticipated premieres, with Sandra Hüller among the stars drawing attention. The film was screened alongside Asghar Farhadi’s *Parallel Tales*, which features Isabelle Huppert in a supporting role. Huppert’s presence at the festival, alongside Vincent Cassel and Catherine Deneuve, was widely covered, though her involvement in *Fatherland* is not mentioned .
The nuance of being a Black woman in America: Is God Is turns righteous rage into gory horror Actors Vivica A Fox, Kara Young and Mallori Johnson on subverting revenge tropes as Aleshea Harriss play storms on to the screenKara Young remembers the fervor around Is God Iss off-Broadway run in 2018. Playwright Aleshea Harriss revenge tale ran at New Yorks Soho Rep theater from February through May of that year. Young was performing in a different show at the time, but she knew she needed to see Harriss play by any means necessary.I was lucky to get a ticket, says the two-time Tony award-winning actor, recalling the buzz about the show that rippled through the theater community and saw it transfer to London in 2021. As soon as she saw it, Young easily understood why: It blew my mind. Those characters have stayed in my spirit since 2018. Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
Backtalker by Kimberlé Crenshaw review – the audacity of hope The inspiring life of the Black American activist and legal scholar who changed the way the world things about race Kimberlé Crenshaws memoir describes a life shadowed by Jim Crow segregation and racism, but lit up by hope. That the social conditions of her early life did not destroy her family, as they had so many others, must be credited to their extraordinary grit and determination. The journey that led Crenshaw to create the influential legal theory of intersectionality begins with the well of thoughtless devaluation faced by little Black girls. And for all who think those days have long gone, Backtalker is a must read.Backtalking is how Crenshaw responds to anything that does not make sense. Whether as a five-year-old kindergarten student who was allowed to portray a witch but not a princess in a school play, or decades later, lobbying Harvards dean of law to hire Black faculty and being asked whether she wouldnt prefer an excellent white professor over a mediocre Black one, Crenshaw talked back. For her, backtalking is about resilience in the midst of struggle, which sometimes painfully includes talking back to the ones we love. Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
Cast Away by Francesca de Tores review – gripping portrait of the real-life Robinson Crusoe This fascinating novel about 18th-century privateer Alexander Selkirk, abandoned on a tiny island in the South Pacific, becomes a revelatory meditation on humanityIts hard to think of many superficial affinities between Frank OHara, the queer poet and art critic whose urbane voice is synonymous with 60s Manhattan, and Alexander Selkirk, the 18th-century Scottish privateer whose marooning on a tiny island in the South Pacific would eventually inspire Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe. Yet, curiously, it is a line from OHaras poem Mayakovsky that Francesca de Tores refits for Selkirks mouth at the opening of her new novel, Cast Away.Selkirk insists that he is cast upon the island only by the catastrophe of my personality – which is a sobering thing, even for a man used to being sober. And while the OHara of Mayakovsky is famously content to wait for the catastrophe of my personality / to seem beautiful again, / and interesting, and modern, Selkirk – newly and utterly alone on a stony blemish in the ocean, 400 miles off the coast of Chile – spends his first three days and nights on the island blind drunk on the cask of flip left behind with him as a courtesy from his erstwhile crewmates, raging at his fate. This act of unexpected transhistorical ventriloquism is a suitably strange beginning to a surprisingly uncanny novel. Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
An Ideal Husband review – Oscar Wildes comedy gets the gleefully camp glow-up it deserves Lyric Hammersmith, London The dissolute aristocrats from 1895 remain sharply funny, and bitingly relevant, in this flamboyant new spinOscar Wildes comedy was billed as a play of modern life when it premiered at the Haymarket theatre in London in 1895. It is just as modern now in its central, chiming theme: the clandestine corruptions of outwardly squeaky-clean members of parliament.Sir Robert Chiltern (Chiké Okonkwo) is the apparently upstanding minister and ideal husband to Lady Chiltern (Tamara Lawrance) but his past bears the illicit selling of a cabinet secret to a baron. This threatens to ruin him if he does not appease the blackmailing Mrs Cheveley (Aurora Perrineau). Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
Helen Gohs recipe for Thai mango and coconut sticky rice | The sweet spot Bring a taste of Thailand into your home with sweet, creamy, sticky coconut rice served with fragrant mangoKnown as khao niao mamuang, this sweet, creamy coconut rice with ripe mango is one of Thailands most beloved desserts. The rice used is sweet glutinous rice, which is sometimes labelled sticky rice – a short-grain variety that turns tender, glossy and slightly chewy when steamed. Folded through warm coconut milk and served with slices of fragrant mango, its a simple but beautiful pudding. Dont forget the salt, though; it is essential to balance the richness. Serve warm or at room temperature. Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
Are you sitting uncomfortably? How Backrooms upended the horror movie It was just a creepy picture on the internet. Now its the years freakiest film. Its 20-year-old auteur Kane Parsons and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve take us through the terrifying labyrinthChiwetel Ejiofor has been on a lot of movie sets, but Backrooms was something different: a 30,000 sq ft labyrinth of apparently random corridors and chambers, all carpeted, fluorescent lit and decorated in the same sickly yellow wallpaper. It was so big that people were getting lost in it, says Ejiofor: Especially on those first days. As you try to navigate your way around and youre like: Im sure its this door, Im sure thats the way. Hes laughing at the recollection. And you find yourself just back in the wrong corner of the whole studio and youre like: Get me some help!This is kind of the point of Backrooms – the movie and the online phenomenon that spawned it. Its a concept that takes some unpacking, but as the premise for a buzzy A24 horror freakout, you could summarise it as something like The Blair Witch Project meets Severance or The Shining set in an infinite Travelodgeor maybe the exact opposite of a Wes Anderson movie. Comparisons fall short, partly because the Backrooms concept feels as if its come from another world – a parallel dimension, even. Ejiofor concurs: There was stuff that we were doing by the end of the film that I was just like: This is among the most bizarre things I have ever been involved in. Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
Renowned feminist artist and film-maker Valie Export dies aged 85 Exports performances scandalised Austria in the 1960s, but are now recognised for exposing the objectification of the female bodyValie Export, the Austrian performance artist and film-maker who inverted the male gaze in ways that were provocative, shocking and often outrageously fun, has died aged 85.The artists own foundation announced on Thursday evening that Export died in Vienna earlier the same day, three days before her 86th birthday. Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
Parallel Tales review – Isabelle Huppert pens furtive sexual fantasy for Vincent Cassel in Asghar Farhadis latest Cannes film festival: Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi returns to France with this intriguing middleweight meta-drama featuring a cameo from Catherine DeneuveAsghar Farhadi is the Iranian auteur whose film-making style has always shown the high European influences of Antonioni and Haneke. He has in fact made two films in Europe: The Past in France and Everybody Knows in Spain.Now he returns to France and the French language for this diverting, middleweight meta-drama about betrayal and about a supposed link between voyeurism and creativity: do writers spy on the characters they have brought to life? Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
Huppert, Cassel and Sandra Hüller light up Cannes 2026 as Farhadi and Pawlikowski premiere new films The stars are out in force on the Croisette tonight as Asghar Farhadi unveils Parallel Tales, bringing together an extraordinary French cast including Virginie Efira, Pierre Niney, Isabelle Huppert, Vincent Cassel and a special appearance from Catherine Deneuve. Meanwhile, Paweł Pawlikowski returns to competition with Fatherland, starring Sandra Hüller in one of the festivals most anticipated premieres. FRANCE 24s Culture editor Eve Jackson reports live from the Cannes Film Festival red carpet.
france24 · 6 days ago
American poet Sasha Debevec-McKenney wins Dylan Thomas prize for blistering debut poetry collection The £20,000 award for writers aged 39 or under goes to Joy Is My Middle Name, a collection about navigating race, addiction and womanhoodA debut poetry collection with themes including race, addiction and womanhood has won this years Swansea University Dylan Thomas prize.American poet Sasha Debevec-McKenney took home the £20,000 prize – awarded to writers aged 39 or under in honour of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who died at that age – for her debut collection Joy Is My Middle Name. She was announced as the winner at a ceremony in Swansea, Thomass birthplace. Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago
Fatherland: Pawel Pawlikowski inunda Cannes con la memoria herida y profundamente triste de la Europa fracturada (*****) El director polaco presenta la primera y temprana candidata a la Palma de oro, una medida, profunda y emocionantísima reflexión en blanco y negro sobre la identidad, la familia, el amor y la culpa Leer
elmundo · 6 days ago
Fatherland review – Sandra Hüller brings a bayonet of intelligence to Paweł Pawlikowskis taut return Cannes film festival: Hanns Zischler stars as Thomas Mann on his 1949 tour of Germany, contending with political barbs, personal tragedy and his daughter, played by an extraordinary HüllerHere is an impossibly elegant, poised historical vignette whose brevity and control can hardly contain its characters personal and historical pain. It is directed and co-written by the Polish film-maker Paweł Pawlikowski and shot in lustrous monochrome by Lukasz Zal; it is a film about exile and betrayal, the impossibility of going home and of reconciling an artists children to their secondary importance.The setting is 1949 and the celebrated German novelist and Nobel laureate Thomas Mann – who fled the Nazis before the war for California exile and US citizenship – has returned home, first visiting Frankfurt (now in West Germany) to receive an award named after Goethe, whose birthplace this is. It is Goethes enlightened civilised wisdom and apolitical artistry Mann will pointedly evoke in his many elaborate speeches. Continue reading...
theguardian · 6 days ago