In their documentary film called “Charlie Chaplin. A Man of the World“, the sisters Carmen and Dolores Chaplin are investigating their grandfather’s Romani origin. Some of the first clips from the film were presented by them at the BCN Film Fest underway in Barcelona.
This is the first time the Chaplin family has contributed to such a degree on a film about Charlin Chaplin, both as authors and producers. They say the documentary “radically reinterprets Chaplin’s work from a Romani perspective and, through that lens, investigates the persecution of the Roma.”
The documentary focuses on the Romani roots of film legend Charlie Chaplin, the circumstances of his birth and his childhood period, and how his Romipen affected his art. The film also offers a new, unique view of Chaplin’s life and films, as well as celebrating Romani culture.
In his autobiography, Chaplin himself made no secret of the fact that both his father and mother were themselves half-Romani. He never had a birth certificate but was said to have been born on 16 April 1889 in London, England.
After his death in 1977, a letter was found in his nightstand addressed to him by a Romani correspondent. It describes the night on which Chaplin is said to have been born at a Romani camp in a caravan in Black Patch Park, Smethwick in central-western England.