Splendours and Miseries of the Camondo Family
Thu 27 FebAfter 209 Rue Saint Maur, Paris 10ème, Ruth Zylberman investigates the traces of the Camondo family, often called the “Rothschilds of the East”. The saga of this family began at the beginning of the 19th century in Constantinople on the banks of the Bosphorus. It continued with its share of conquests, betrayals and tragedies in the posh streets and castles of Belle Époque France, the distress of the trenches of the First World War and the brutal end in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
They were an Ottoman Jewish family who became French Israelites and art lovers who donated their exceptional collections to France. The only thing left of the Camondos are the things, the objects and the places which still vibrate from the eyes which looked at them, from the mind that chose them, from the hands that touched them.
Special Screening
The screening will be followed by a conversation between Ruth Zylberman and Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes and Letters to Camondo.
About our guests
Ruth Zylberman
Ruth Zylberman was born in Paris. She is a writer and a documentary film director. Her films have won numerous awards at international festivals. Her latest filmography credentials include : The Splendor and miseries of the Camondo Family (2024), The Trial, Prague 1952 (2021), 209 rue Saint-Maur, Paris Xe (2017), Dissidents (2009). Her novel, La Direction de l’Absent (2015, Ed. Christian Bourgois) was translated into English as The Department of Missing People (Arcade Publishing), as well as in German and Spanish. She also published 209 rue Saint-Maur, Paris Xe, Autobiographie d’un immeuble (2020, Le Seuil/Arte-Editions) which has been translated in several languages.
Edmund de Waal
Edmund de Waal is an internationally acclaimed artist and writer, best known for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels, often created in response to collections and archives or the history of a particular place. His interventions have been made for diverse spaces and museums worldwide, including Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire; the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris; The British Museum, London; The Frick Collection, New York; Ateneo Veneto, Venice; Schindler House, Los Angeles; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna and V&A Museum, London. De Waal is also renowned for his bestselling family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), and The White Road (2015). His most recent book, Letters to Camondo, a series of haunting letters written during lockdown was published in April 2021. He was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction by Yale University in 2015. In 2021 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and awarded a CBE for his services to art. In 2024 he was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
