A new documentary on Charlie Chaplin is in the making. This time, the story of Hollywood's iconic comedian will be directed by none other than his granddaughter Carmen Chaplin.
Carmen will be helming Charlie Chaplin, a Man of the World, a documentary theatre feature film. According to Variety, the new documentary will add a "hardly explored new facet to the creator of the Tramp" going in-depth into his Romani roots and heritage.
This is the first time that a person from the Chaplin family has had such creative control over the making of a Charlie Chaplin movie. Carmen will also pen the script along with Amaia Remirez (Another Day of Life).
The producers Stany Coppet, Dolores Chaplin and others described their upcoming project in a statement as a documentary which, "radically reinterprets Chaplin's oeuvre from a Romani perspective and examines the persecution of gypsies through his lens."
Charlie Chaplin, A Man of the World is currently in development and is expected to begin production in the first quarter of 2020. The project has come to fruition, thanks to the collaboration with France's MK2, the company that owns the right to Chaplin's movies.
"Determined to subvert audience expectations of a documentary on the silent film master,, the storytellers envisage a dynamic fusion of animation, film excerpts, interviews with artists and Chaplin's children, and cinema verité footage of Roma life today coming together to a soundtrack of new interpretations of Chaplin's original compositions," the filmmakers said in a statement.
Before fans get to see Charlie Chaplin, a Man of the World, Altitude Film Sales and Showtime network seems to be the first in line to showcase their "definitive" documentary film.
The project titled Chasing Chaplin, made by BAFTA-nominated filmmakers Peter Middleton and James Spinney has already wrapped up production with Altitude Film currently in the process of distributing international rights. Showtime will feature launch the film on its platform for the US.
Fortunately, it looks like the two documentaries will not be sharing many similarities with each other. But the filmmakers of both features have managed to gain access to valuable documents and could possibly show two different sides of Chalpin's tales.
