CHARLOTTE

By Simón FRANCO

PELICANO CINE - as PROD

Drama - Completed 2019

“The absurd journey of an actress who in the twilight of her career will reinvent herself through a past that has already passed.”

Festivals
& Awards

IBERMEDIA 2018
CoProd Fund
Secretaría Nacional de Cultura de Paraguay 2018
Subsidy
Fondo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes de Paraguay 2019
Subsidy
Centro Cultural de la Reúpublica Cabildo de Paraguay 2019
Subsidy
INCAA 2019
Subsidy
    • Year of production
    • 2019
    • Genres
    • Drama, Fantasy, Comedy
    • Countries
    • ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY
    • Languages
    • SPANISH, Other
    • Budget
    • 1 - 3 M$
    • Duration
    • 90 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Simón FRANCO
    • Writer(s)
    • Lucila PODESTA, Constanza CABRERA, Simon FRANCO
    • Producer(s)
    • Araquen RODRIGUEZ (PELICANO CINE), Simon FRANCO (Lemon Films)
    • Synopsis
    • Charlotte (65) was an acclaimed Spanish actress who had her glory years long ago and now lives in Argentina with her young tai chi guru and handy man, Lee (40), her loyal and only companion.
      Together they have created their own private universe, built on the basis of playful and wild rules that begin to crack when Charlotte sees the local newspaper; director Gaspar Thibert, Charlotte’s long time collaborator and muse, is going to film his latest film in Latin America, more precisely in Paraguay. Her long relationship with Gaspar was powerful and stormy, but never formalized.
      Charlotte recognizes the film’s title: Gaspar had showed her the same script forty years before. Just knowing that the project will finally be filmed unleashes memories and pain that she had buried deep inside. After the sudden death of her therapist during her first session, Charlotte convinces Lee that the only remedy for her is to go after a role Gaspar’s movie, face her past and return to the screen. They list their old mansion for rent and embark on an unusual journey aboard their motorhome, with a photo taken from the newspaper as their only clue. In the photo, we can see Gaspar trying to hide from the cameras with his hand and in the background next to entrance of El Hotel del Lago we see Samuel, the Paraguayan producer, a man guiding European producers around the country looking for locations while attempting to balance his growing professional career, and his romantic life.
      Throughout their journey Charlotte and Lee are constantly in the same places as Sam and his crew, but never in the same moment. Along the road Charlotte and Lee meet two characters who will mutually change their fates. The first is Elena, a young amateur boxer who lives for her sick grandfather, but eventually is inspired by Charlotte and Lee to escape the city. The second, Ana, the pregnant director who Charlotte meets on-set while forced to act in an anti-ageing cream commercial to raise money for her journey. Ana is full of doubts about being a mother.
      Charlotte will have to face the secrets of her past and the fact that she’s not the same young beautiful woman that left the silver screen back in 1980. She is going to face her reality, her current image and end up returning to the cinema reinvented in the form of a CGI monster in a sci-fi filmed in Paraguay.