Filming Begins on “1949” by Academy Award®–Winning Director Paweł Pawlikowski for MUBI and OUR FILMS. Production will take place in Poland, Germany, and Italy.
August 19, 2025 – Filming has begun on 1949, the new film by Academy Award®–winning director Paweł Pawlikowski, written by Pawlikowski himself together with Henk Handloegten.
Producers of the film include MUBI, OUR FILMS (a Mediawan company, Italy), Extreme Emotions (Poland), Nine Hours (Germany), Chapter2 (a Mediawan company, France), in collaboration with Circle One (Italy). Filming will take place in Poland, Germany, and Italy.
The cast, listed alphabetically, features: August Diehl (A Hidden Life, Inglourious Basterds), Oscar® nominee Sandra Hüller (The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall), Anna Madeley (Patrick Melrose, All Creatures Great and Small), Devid Striesow (All Quiet on the Western Front), Theo Trebs (The White Ribbon), and Hanns Zischler (Munich, The Theory of Everything).
Set at the height of the Cold War, 1949 tells the story of the relationship between writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller), an actress, journalist, and rally driver. Aboard a black Buick, they embark on a road trip across a devastated Germany—from Frankfurt under U.S. influence to Weimar under Soviet control.
With 1949, Pawlikowski continues the thematic exploration begun in his acclaimed films Ida and Cold War, examining identity, guilt, family, and love against the backdrop of postwar Europe’s chaos and moral ambiguity.
The film is produced by Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Mieli for OUR FILMS, Ewa Puszczynska for Extreme Emotions, Jeanne Tremsal and Edward Berger for Nine Hours, Dimitri Rassam for Chapter2, and Lorenzo Gangarossa for Circle One.
Pawlikowski reunites with his long-time collaborators, including Oscar®-nominated cinematographer Lukasz Zal, costume designer Aleksandra Staszko, editor Piotr Wójcik, production designers Katarzyna Soba?ska and Marcel Sławinski, and composer Marcin Marsecki.
Pawlikowski’s Ida received 70 international awards, including five European Film Awards and the 2015 Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2018, at the Cannes Film Festival, Pawlikowski was nominated for Best Director for Cold War, which won 52 awards and received 126 nominations, including three Academy Award® nominations for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography.
