Charlotte Colbert

Born on 30 May 1987, Colbert is one of the eight children of Sir James Goldsmith, the businessman who died in 1997. Her mother is the French journalist Laure Boulay de la Meurthe, with whom Goldsmith openly had a long-term relationship while married to Annabel Goldsmith. Colbert is a half-sibling of Jemima, Zac, and Ben Goldsmith.[1]

Colbert studied at the London Film School.[6] She is the co-author of feature film Leave to Remain about underage asylum seekers in Britain[7] with a score by Mercury Prize-winning band Alt-J.[8] It won awards at the BUFF Film Festival[9] and the Bergamo International Film Festival.[10]

In 2016, she wrote and directed The Silent Man, described in ID as "the most surreal shorts you'll ever see"[11] with Simon Amstell, Sophie Kennedy-Clark, Ben Miller, and a cameo by Cillian Murphy. She made two animated shorts The Girl With Liquid Eyes[12] with Maryam d'Abo and The Man With the Stolen Heart with Bill Nighy based on her book of short stories Topsy Turvy Tales.

She is a producer on Dali Land directed by Mary Harron (American Psycho), co-produced with Pressman Films. It is a biopic about artist Salvador Dalí starring Sir Ben Kingsley, Ezra Miller, Andreja Peijic, and Suki Waterhouse.[13]

Colbert directed and co-wrote She Will with Alice Krige, Kota Eberhart, Malcolm McDowell, and Rupert Everett produced by Dario Argento and Pressman Films with an original score by Clint Mansell. The BIFA nominated film won the Golden Leopard for the first film at the Locarno Film Festival. It was Critic's Pick In the New York Times, and Mark Kermode described it as "an edgy psychological horror meets feminist fable".[14] It has been described as "A Superb, Sly Horror-Drama Debut Delivering Otherworldly Feminist Vengeance"[15] by Jessica Kiang in Variety, Guillermo del Toro called it "a remarkable directorial debut, purely cinematic", and Alfonso Cuarón has said that "it sits in the tradition of great psychological horror films [which] leaves one questioning long after [it] is finished".[16][17]

Colbert is the founder of Popcorn Group, a production company known for the viral sensation short Leading Lady Parts[18] (with Emilia Clark, Florence Pugh and Gemma Chan), co-producing Fleabag[19] in the WestEnd, and co-producing Alice Lowe's time travelling romcom TimeStalker with the BFI.[20]

Colbert set up the Popcorn Writing Award in Edinburgh, run with the BBC Writersroom, which gives a prize to a writer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe every year.[21] Past committee members have included Fatima Bhutto, Aurora, Jonny Woo, Lena Headey, and Enda Walsh.

Colbert also set up the NFTS x Popcorn Writing Award[22] which allocates a prize to the most original script from NFTS film school screenwriting graduates.

Colbert was one of the publishers of The Artists Colouring Book of ABCs done in support of the Kids Company,[23] featuring works by Grayson Perry, Alex Katz, and Tracey Emin.

Colbert is on the board of the Isla Foundation[24] and the Ecology Trust.

• Nam June Paik
• Jean Toomer
• Renate Bertlmann