Charlotte (1980)

A Film from the Artur Brauner Collection at Our Library

Scene from the movie “Charlotte” — Scene from the movie Charlotte
CCC Filmkunst

The biopic about the artist Charlotte Salomon begins in January 1939 with her flight from Berlin to the south of France. It is here that painting becomes a means for the 21-year-old Charlotte to face her despair over her mother’s suicide and her grandmother's suicidal thoughts. Over a period of 18 months, she creates the series Life? Or Theatre? depicting her love for her singing teacher Alfred Wolfsohn among other subjects.

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The W. M. Blumenthal Academy is marked in green

Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy, Library
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
Postal address: Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin

Charlotte Salomon was born in 1917 into a middle-class Jewish family and studied at the Art Academy in Berlin until 1937. She married the Austrian emigré Alexander Nagler in 1943. In the same year, the couple was handed over to the German occupying forces, deported via Drancy to Auschwitz, and murdered. In the more than 1,300 gouaches that she created in exile, Charlotte Salomon tells of her live in Berlin in a style with comedic and filmic elements. The series of paintings has been shown in numerous exhibitions (including one at the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2007) and has inspired a number of films and operas.

Starring Birgit Doll, Elisabeth Trissenaar and Derek Jacobi. Directed by Frans Weisz.