The Catskills

*Proceeds from ticket sales for this screening will benefit the Borscht Belt Film Festival, a project of the Borscht Belt Museum.*

The Catskills is a humorous and nostalgic tribute to what became affectionately known as the Borscht Belt. Stand-up comedians share their best shtick while former waiters, entertainers, and dance instructors recount tales of the family-run resorts and bungalows that inspired films like Dirty Dancing. Featuring home movies, publicity photos, postcards, and menus, this time capsule provides an overview of Jewish immigration to New York going back to the early twentieth century. Director Lex Gillespie (The Mamboniks, SFJFF 2019) maps the development of the vacation destination, from a refuge for working-class Jews seeking a respite from poverty in overcrowded New York City tenements to a lavish summer playground for the affluent.

DIRECTOR’S BIO: Lex Gillespie is a three-time Peabody Award winner and the shared winner of a silver baton from the duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards at New York’s Columbia School of Journalism. For the past 25 years, he’s produced documentaries on music, history, culture and the arts. His credits include “Let the Good Times Roll,” a 26-hour history of African-American music from the blues to Motown; “Songs in the Wind,” the story of the indigenous music of the Andes Mountains; and “Seoul House,” about a hip-hop opera set in a Korean mom-and-pop corner store in Washington, DC.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I got the idea for my film when I was screening “The Mamboniks” in 2019. At nearly each of the film festivals, someone would raise their hand during the Q&A session and ask a question about the Catskills. I realized there was a demand for a movie about this storied vacation land that so many people recall fondly.