ADFF special guest, Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter, has made her mark in the film industry

Carmen Chaplin. Pascal Le Segretain /Getty Images for Jaeger-LeCoultre

Carmen Chaplin, granddaughter of the legendary Hollywood actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, will be a guest at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival's opening gala screening of Ali Mostafa's From A to B on Thursday night.

The English actress and director has appeared in films such as Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World, Sidney Pollack's Sabrina and The Serpent's Kiss, alongside Ewan McGregor. She will be seen next year alongside Malcolm MacDowell in the New Orleans crime thriller ­Vicious, and has been a member of the international jury at the Rome Film Festival.

Chaplin has also emulated her famous grandfather by moving into directing. In 2012, she made the short film Tryst in Paneme, starring her sister Dolores Chaplin and Bambou Gainsbourg, about a woman whose sense of self-value is wrapped up in her beauty.

Last year she made another short film, A Time for Everything, commissioned by the luxury watch brand Jaeger-LeCoultre, one of ADFF's partners. She also starred in the film – a ­meditation on the theme of time celebrating the 50th ­anniversary of the company's presentation to Charlie Chaplin of a special Memovox watch when he settled in Switzerland, alongside her mother and daughter.

“I love antique watches and the idea that they have a past and a story to tell,” she says. “My grandfather’s watch particularly moves me, because he gave it to my father, Michael Chaplin, his son, when he turned 14. Then my dad gave it to my mum as proof of their love on their wedding day. It was a real good-luck charm because they have been in love now for 45 years.”

This year, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first appearance of Chaplin's Little Tramp, she directed and produced The Innovators, a short sci-fi comedy about three scientists who look to the past to save Earth's decaying ecosystem.

• Read The National on Thursday for an exclusive interview with Chaplin