Sandra Hüller has been cast in 1949, the new feature from Oscar-winning filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski, now in production with backing from Mubi and Our Films. The Cold War–era road movie follows writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika as they drive from U.S.-controlled Frankfurt to Soviet-controlled Weimar, a journey that threads personal ties through a newly divided Europe. Hanns Zischler plays Mann, with Hüller as Erika; filming is underway in Poland, Germany and Italy.
The ensemble also includes August Diehl, Anna Madeley, Devid Striesow and Theo Trebs. Behind the camera, Pawlikowski reunites with cinematographer Łukasz Żal, whose collaborations with the director on Ida and Cold War earned international recognition. Producers span multiple European partners, among them Ewa Puszczyńska and Nine Hours, the company led by Edward Berger.
Set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the film pivots on a real historical moment: Mann’s return to Germany in 1949 to mark the Goethe bicentennial. The Nobel laureate accepted honors in both Frankfurt and Weimar and tried to bridge East and West, declaring that he knew “no zones” and that his trip was to “Germany as a whole,” even as the visit drew criticism in the West. The father–daughter drive at the heart of 1949 reframes that episode as intimate passage through a landscape of ruins and competing ideologies.
For Pawlikowski, who last drew global acclaim with Cold War, the new project revisits the period’s tensions through a non-romantic pairing and a different artistic family. Hüller arrives after a breakout awards season with Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, adding marquee heft to a European co-production that has support from Polish and German funds and aims to reach audiences through Mubi’s expanding production-distribution pipeline. Local authorities in Silesia have flagged location work this month, with period street dressing transforming contemporary city centers into late-1940s Frankfurt and Weimar.
