Borscht Belt Film Fest: RESCUING BORSCHT BELT HISTORY: A CONVERSATION WITH "WE MET AT GROSSINGER'S" DIRECTOR PAULA EISELT

Doors open at 9 AM with coffee and breakfast available for purchase.

Join us for a light breakfast and a conversation with filmmaker Paula Eiselt about her documentary We Met at Grossinger's, a celebration of the legendary Catskills resort that inspired Dirty Dancing and stood at the heart of Jewish American life. Built and run by three generations of Grossinger women, the resort became a sanctuary of identity, joy, and reinvention for a community shut out of mainstream vacation spots. Moderated by Ira Deutchman.

Eiselt will discuss uncovering this history with the Grossinger family, her work with archival footage and interviews, and why preserving the stories of the Borscht Belt matters now.

Paula Eiselt is a Peabody and duPont-Columbia Award-winning director, a Primetime Emmy nominee, and a Sundance Jury Prize winner, known for character-driven storytelling with journalistic rigor. Her films include 93Queen, about a trailblazing Hasidic judge and her all-female ambulance corps in Brooklyn, and Aftershock, which examines the U.S. maternal health crisis and premiered at Sundance. She also directed the short Under G-d. Her work has screened at more than 100 festivals and streamed on HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, and PBS/POV. A graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Eiselt premiered We Met at Grossinger's at DOC NYC in 2025.

Ira Deutchman has been making, marketing, and distributing films since 1975, having worked on over 150 films, including some of the most successful independent films of all time.