On the first days of February 2020, as member of the Finnish team working on Romani circus people, Laurence Prempain was in Paris to collect data and meet witness and scholars. This post is made to thanks all people who shared their knowledge and memories.
Thanks to Anne-Marie Quevrain, great granddaughter of Georges Méliès. Méliès screened his first film, Le voyage dans la lune (1902) on a fairground. He owed part of his success to the fairground showmen who toured with their travelling cinema. Thanks to Karen Taïeb from the Mémorial de la Shoah (Head of Archives Department) and her valuable input in research hypothesis. Thanks to Raymond Gurême, a French Manouche (born 1926) whose family was touring in France with a travelling circus and a travelling cinema until the Second World War. We spent more than three hours in his caravan to talk about his souvenirs when his family was spreading cinema in small villages, bringing joy and divertissement. He also evoked hard days when his family was interned by the French governments (1940 -1946). Raymond escaped several times from French camps and German concentration camp before coming back and enter in Resistance. Thanks to Eloïse Gaillard of Musée des arts forains (Fairground Museum) in charge of collections. We exchanged about our respective research. This research trip started and ended in classic and modern National Library where access to valuable written contributions was possible. Four intensive days in search for Romani travelling cinema.