Good Deed Entertainment is finding fresh ways to do the big screen biopic, especially when it relates to the stories of artists. In 2015 they released Loving Vincent, a breathtaking fully-painted animated biopic that earned accolades and more than $40M worldwide. And now they’re back again with Charlotte, an animated biography on the life of 26-year-old artist Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish artist who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.
The American version of the film features Keira Knightley as the voice of Charlotte, while the French version has Marion Cotillard. Charlotte was primarily known a series of autobiographical paintings titled Life? or Theater?: A Song-play, consisting of 769 individual works painted between 1941 and 1943 while she was in hiding from the Nazis in the south of France.
In 2015, it was revealed through Charlotte’s own diary entries, and one painting, that she murdered her grandfather in 1943 using poison. That’s how I first heard of her, when that revelation was made. How much it plays into this film is beyond me. Charlotte Salomon has been a cult figure in some art circles for years.
The film had its world premiere at TIFF in 2021. It’s directed by Eric Warin and Tahir Rana. Mark Strong, Brenda Blethyn, Jim Broadbent, Sam Claflin, Henry Czerny, Eddie Marsan, Sophie Ok0nedo, and the late Helen McCrory also lend their voices.
Charlotte opens in select theaters on April 22nd.
