Pawel Pawlikowski and Ruben Östlund are among the names that will attend this year’s Slano Film Days in Croatia. 

Pawlikowski will present his latest feature, Fatherland, at the event. Fatherland debuted last week at the Cannes Film Festival, where Pawlikowski won the Best Director award. He shared the award with Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who directed La Bola Negra.

Pawlikowski directed Fatherland from a screenplay he co-wrote with Hendrik Handloegten. Pawlikowski also co-edited the project with Piotr Wójcik. The film centres on the relationship between the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller). 

The official synopsis reads: “In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, father and daughter embark on a challenging and emotional road trip in a black Buick, taking them across a Germany in ruins – from US-dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar. Returning home after sixteen years of exile in the US, Thomas Mann has to face not only a divided fatherland, but also a deep fracture within his own family.” 

Pawlikowski will take part in an onstage Q&A at Slano Film Days. Östlund will moderate the session. In addition to moderating, the Swedish filmmaker will screen several of his short films at the event. Östlund will also take part in an onstage Q&A where he will discuss his latest feature, The Entertainment System Is Down, which is currently in post-production.

The Entertainment System Is Down is Östlund’s follow-up to the Palme d’Or-winning satire Triangle of Sadness. The film is a social satire set on a long-haul flight where the entertainment systems fail, and an eclectic group of international passengers are forced to face the horror of being bored.