Film Showing and Discussion: My Grandmother’s Sitting Room

A showing of My Grandmother's Sitting Room, a short film depicting the journey to find the grandmother filmmaker Laure Levy never knew. Laure’s grandmother, Franze Levy, was lost in the Holocaust, and in the film Laure visits Franze’s old home near Leipzig in Germany - the meeting place of her literary set that included the likes of Thomas Mann. As this circle drew Franze into danger, we pass from the comfort of her sitting room to a period of growing insecurity, and her arrest and escape to Holland. The discovery of a recent item takes us to a remote building outside Amsterdam as we pass from the height of German culture to Nazi brutality.

For Laure, making this film has been the first step in documenting the extraordinary lives of the women in her family who were killed before she was born. The film will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.