Charlotte is an extraordinary new feature based on the life of Charlotte Salomon, a Jewish woman (born Berlin, 1917, killed Auschwitz, 1943) whose extraordinary fictionalized autobiography--the dramatized story of her doomed Berlin family's fate from 1913-1940--has recently been published in the Netherlands and in Germany. The Dutch-German feature is directed by Frans Weisz and stars Shakespearean actor Derek Jacobi as the Svengali-like voice teacher who is young Charlotte's great love, and Austrian actress Birgit Doll as Charlotte.
Charlotte Salomon's life-work, entitled “Life or Theater? A Play with Music,” includes a text in rhymes, 796 paintings in gouache, and an annotated musical accompaniment. The film follows the author from Berlin in 1939 to the south of France where she hides out and paints her “musical play” until she is arrested and deported. “Through a series of flashbacks, Charlotte weaves a portrait of this young woman's love for her Svengali, of the numerous suicides in her family, and of the artistic drive of a stunning and distorted imagination. Charlotte...conveys the anxiety and despair of the times, and one woman's heroic attempts at self-liberation--the extent of the strength of an individual against the overpowering tide of history” (Jewish Film Festival). Charlotte was featured at the 1980 Venice Film Festival.