2024 FILM PROGRAM

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

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.

To be followed by a conversation with director Lex Gillespie and moderator Peter Alan Chester, a historian and Borscht Belt Museum board member who appears in the film.

SATURDAY, NOV. 2, 10:00 AM
Drama-Musical Comedy / 1950 / 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.

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

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.

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

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, author Shalom Auslander, Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, and Auschwitz survivor Renee Firestone.

Conversation with director Ferne Pearlstein.

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

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.

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

Conversation with costume designer Jess Goldstein and moderator Jay Blotcher.

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

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.

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

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 moderator Peter Alan Chester and special guest -- to be announced!

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

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.

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

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.

Sunday, Nov. 3, 4:00 PM

A screening of shorts submitted to the fest, highlighted by the 1993 documentary Let's Fall in Love: A Singles Weekend at the Concord Hotel by director Constance Marks.

Before there was online dating, thousands of singles would flock to the Concord Hotel’s famed matchmaker weekends in the Catskill Mountains. The director attended one such weekend event the early 1990s, and interviewed unattached people as they mixed and mingled in hopes of meeting their happily-ever-after mate.

Conversation with moderator Melody Gilbert and the filmmakers.

Shorts awards ceremony to follow.