SCREENPLAY

The screenplay for "Charlotte" is a labor of love, boldly told and vividly imagined. The script is a regional winner of Creative Europe, has been awarded an Irish Film Board Grant, and along with another of Janice’s screenplays, was a semi-finalist for New York Women in Film and Television’s Writers Lab. It will be a European/U.S. co-production.

In 18 months, the German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon frantically painted the story of her 26 years on earth (1917-1943). The result is a vibrant collection of over 800 paintings that regularly exhibit throughout the world. This monumental work titled Life? or Theater? is unparalleled in the history of art. Paintings filled with action and dialogue, music and emotion, portraying a life reborn in a graphic novel-like style with wit and intimacy.

Like Anne Frank’s diary, Charlotte’s visionary drive created a lasting record of a passionate love of life, well lived, in a world submerged into ever increasing darkness. Her masterpiece is a trifecta of contemporary themes: the plight of refugees, sexual impropriety, and female empowerment. A portion of this vast collection is on permanent, pre-eminent view in Yad Vashem's Museum Complex in Jerusalem, one of only three artists to be granted an area solely devoted to their work there. Charlotte’s art "allows a different view of the Holocaust—based on the experience of the individual—using a medium that appeals not just to the intellect, but also penetrates straight to the heart.”