Another Chaplin hits the screen

The 23-year-old granddaughter of the great silent film star Charlie Chaplin has appeared in her first major film role, starring in the Italian director Roberto Stefano's new movie, Imago Mortis. Oona Chaplin (pictured left) - named after her grandmother Oona - attended the premiere in Madrid last night with her mother and co-star, Geraldine Chaplin (right), Charlie's oldest daughter.

While Geraldine made her big screen debut at 21 as Omar Sharif's wife in the great Russian romance Doctor Zhivago, Oona gets her break in a horror film set in a university film school.

Imago Mortis, made by the producers of Pan's Labyrinth and The Orphanage, follows a young man who runs into trouble with members of a cult who believe it is possible to reproduce on paper the last image imprinted on a person's retina immediately before their death. Cue a considerable amount of killing.

Oona has had bit parts in the Bond film Quantum of Solace and the BBC TV series Spooks. This is her first major film role.

Oona's grandmother was also an actress but put her career aside to marry Charlie Chaplin at age 18 - against the wishes of her father, the Irish playwright Eugene O'Neill, who was appalled by the couple's 36-year age gap.

It is not known whether Oona Jnr shares her grandparents' passion for Arsenal. Both Charlie, born in Walworth, south London, and his wife were fans, Oona famously calling the club's 1989 victory over Liverpool to win the league "one of the greatest moments of my life". She died in Switzerland in 1991, 14 years after Charlie. ·