2024 FESTIVAL PROGRAM

LIVE EVENT
FRIDAY, NOV. 1, 4:00 PM

Join us for a lively conversation with Judd Hirsch, a longtime Catskills resident and award-winning actor whose performances in Taxi, Ordinary People, Independence Day and dozens of other films and television shows have made him one of the most recognizable and beloved actors in America.

Hirsch will be joined by Jodi Rudoren, editor-in-chief of the Forward, as they review performances both iconic and overlooked, all the while considering Hollywood's complicated approach to the portrayal of Jews in post-war America.

Thank you to the sponsors of this event:
Jason Melville & Jenna Wollemann
Leann VanDerHeyden & John T. Alexander
Hudson Whiskey

OPENING NIGHT FILM
FRIDAY, NOV. 1, 7:00 PM
Documentary / 2024
Director: Lex Gillespie
TRAILER

An award-winning documentary film on the meteoric rise, historic glory days, and bittersweet fall of the Borscht Belt. Former waiters, tummlers, and dance instructors reminisce about the family-run resorts and bungalows that established a cultural standard whose legacy continues to this day.

Conversation with director Lex Gillespie and moderator Peter Alan Chester, a historian and Borscht Belt Museum board member who appears in the film.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Tony & Nick’s
Inness
Radio Catskill
Dan Couse/State Farm Insurance
Peek-a-Moose Restaurant
Stephen Lizardo & Marcel Calarco
Robin & Michael Kaufman in memory of Shirley Cohen

SATURDAY, NOV. 2, 10:00 AM
Drama-Musical Comedy / 1949 / 96 min
Director: Josef Berne

A Yiddish-American musical revue on film, Catskill Honeymoon offers a fictional 50th wedding anniversary story to showcase authentic performers of vaudeville comedy and musical acts in English and Yiddish, once mainstays in Borscht Belt resorts. Much of the film was shot at Young’s Gap Hotel in the Catskills. In English and Yiddish (with occasional subtitles.)

Conversation with Yiddish film historian Eve Sicular and moderator Jay Blotcher.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Sprague & Killeen
The Yiddishkayt Initiative

Saturday, Nov. 2, 12:30 PM
Comedy-Drama/ 1987 / 91 min
Director: Steve Gomer
TRAILER

The Lorraine, a famed Catskills family destination, is run-down, losing money, and nearing the end of its days. Molly, granddaughter of the resort’s matriarch, comes to The Lorraine to escape her parents’ bitter divorce, but becomes part of the resort’s extended family. Shot on location at The Heiden in South Fallsburg. Co-starring iconic Borscht Belt comedian Freddie Roman.

Conversation with director Steve Gomer, production designer David Gropman, art director Karen Schulz and moderator Jay Blotcher.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
The Sandler Family
Janice & Roy Wayne in memory of Shirley Cohen
The Family of Freddie Roman in memory of Freddie Roman

Saturday Nov. 2, 1:00 PM
Borscht Belt Museum
90 Canal St., Ellenville

Join historian & founding board member Peter Alan Chester for a nostalgia filled tour of the museum's latest exhibition, "And Such Small Portions: Food and Comedy in the Catskills Resort Era."

$25, includes museum admission.

Saturday, Nov. 2, 2:00 PM
Free Admission
The Common Good
119 Canal St., Ellenville

A Talk with Lenny & David Melzer, Grandsons of Artist Seymour Rosenthal.

Born in the Bronx and raised on the Lower East Side, Seymour Rosenthal (1921-2007) was a self-taught artist who painted what he knew best: the working-class inhabitants of the gritty New York neighborhoods he knew and loved. Inspired by his surroundings and the seismic events of the 20th century, his paintings, sketches and lithographs capture the hardships of everyday people trying to survive in a rough-and-tumble city, the rise of organized labor and the time-worn and expressive faces of the religious figures who seized his imagination.

Rosenthal's paintings have been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Technion Museum in Haifa and other institutions around the world.

A co-presentation of The Common Good & the Borscht Belt Museum.

Saturday, Nov. 2, 3:00 PM
Documentary / 2016 / 89 min
Director: Ferne Pearlstein
TRAILER

The Holocaust would seem off-limits topic for comedy. But is it? This daring documentary examines this moral conundrum, offering fresh insights into these questions, through interviews with influential comedians and thinkers ranging from Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Judy Gold, Gilbert Gottfried, playwright & musician Jake Ehrenreich, Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, and Auschwitz survivor Renee Firestone.

Conversation with director Ferne Pearlstein, moderated by legendary "Saturday Night Live" comedy writer and Emmy Award winner Alan Zweibel.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Somerset Partners
Imperial Pearl

Saturday, Nov. 2, 5:30 PM
Romance-Drama / 1999 / 106 min
Dir. Tony Goldwyn
TRAILER

A Jewish wife and mother dares to challenge her cozy but narrow life during a summer vacation to a Catskills bungalow colony. Her conflict unfolds against the backdrop of two watershed events in the summer of 1969: the Woodstock festival in Sullivan County and the United States’ historic landing on the moon.

Starring Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, Liev Schreiber and Anna Paquin.

Conversation with Tony Award-winning costume designer Jess Goldstein and moderator Jay Blotcher.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Century 21 Stoeckler Real Estate
Zandra Bender

Saturday, Nov. 2, 8:00 PM
Comedy-Drama / 2009 / 120 min
Director: Ang Lee
TRAILER

Featured Filmmaker and Guest of Honor Ang Lee will be in attendance!

Elliot Tiber, a struggling Greenwich Village interior designer, moves back upstate to help his parents manage their run-down Catskills motel. The bank is about to foreclose, but Elliot hopes for a miracle. Then he meets promoters looking to plan a huge music festival – to be called Woodstock – just down the road. They move into the motel, changing the Tiber family’s fortune – and Elliot’s life. Inspired by the memoir by Elliot Tiber.

Conversation with director Ang Lee, production designer David Gropman and moderator Jay Blotcher.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Bold Gold Media
Shawangunk Journal
NY Music Association
Borscht Belt Deli
Ulster County Tourism
Aroma Thyme
TJ & Debbie Briggs
Billy & Erika Rosenblatt

SUNDAY, NOV. 3, 10:00 AM
Documentary / 2012
Directors: Caroline Laskow and Ian Rosenberg
TRAILER

Kutsher's Country Club was the last surviving Jewish resort in the Catskills, family-owned and operated for over 100 years. This film brings to life how Kutsher’s thrived, especially in the areas of cuisine, comedy and sports. This award-winning documentary captures a last glimpse of a bygone world as it slowly disappears. 

Conversation with historian Peter Alan Chester and Lily Barrish Levner, whose family includes two generations of Kutsher's staff members.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Inness
The Common Good
The Borscht Belt Deli

Sunday, Nov. 3, 12:00 PM
Documentary / 2024
Director: Kevin Dougherty
TEASER

Prolific artist Drew Friedman has chronicled a strange, alternate universe populated by forgotten Hollywood stars, old Jewish comedians, and liver-spotted elevator operators. This irreverent in-depth documentary traces Friedman's evolution from underground comics to the cover of The New Yorker. Featuring interviews with Gilbert Gottfried, Patton Oswalt, Richard Kind, and Mike Judge.

Conversation with Drew Friedman, director Kevin Dougherty and moderator Jay Blotcher.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Architecture in Formation
Keith Rubenstein in memory of Laurence & Phyllis Rubenstein

Sunday Nov. 3, 1:00 PM
Borscht Belt Museum
90 Canal St., Ellenville

Join historian & founding board member Alan Frishman for a nostalgia filled tour of the museum's latest exhibition, "And Such Small Portions: Food and Comedy in the Catskills Resort Era."

$25, includes museum admission.

Sunday, Nov. 3, 2:00 PM
Documentary / 1993
Director: Dave Davidson
TRAILER

The remarkable story of Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates, the famous one-legged black tap dancer and Catskill resort owner, who provided a vacation retreat for Black people still burdened by segregation and Jim Crow laws. Archival film clips and interviews with Ruth Brown, Percy Sutton, Chuck Green, Buster Brown and tap greats Honi Coles and Gregory Hines.

Conversation with director Dave Davidson, co-producer Amber Edwards and Elinor Levy of the Peg Leg Bates Project.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Mill & Main
Ulster County Tourism
M&T Bank
Upstate Curious
Jeff & Marla Kaplan
Leann VanDerHeyden & John T. Alexander

Sunday, Nov. 3, 4:00 PM

LET'S FALL IN LOVE: A SINGLES WEEKEND AT THE CONCORD HOTEL
Documentary / 1993
Director: Constance Marks

Before there was on-line dating, thousands of singles would flock to the Concord Hotel’s famed matchmaker weekends in the Catskill Mountains. 

ALL AMERICAN RUINS: NEVELE GRAND HOTEL
Documentary / 2022
Director: Angel Gates

The Nevele Grand Resort in Ellenville, NY sits abandoned on 500+ acres near the foot of the Catskill Mountains of New York. 

A JEW GROWS IN BROOKLYN
Comedy-Musical 
Director: Jake Ehrenreich

Based on the hit show - the entertaining and inspiring tale of a Brooklyn born child of Holocaust survivors journey of acceptance - from Brooklyn to the Catskills.

Conversation with moderator Melody Gilbert and the filmmakers. Shorts awards ceremony to follow.

Thank you to the sponsors of this screening:
Tablet
Vicki Gold Levi