“The films that we’re showing have a lot of heart,” says Melody Gilbert, director of the third annual Borscht Belt Film Fest.
The term “borscht belt” brings up two immediate associations: food and comedy. Both are represented in this celebration, though borscht itself goes unmentioned. The Automat recounts the history of the waitress-free restaurant—the AI of its time. For those readers younger than 56, let me explain that an automat was a coin-operated cafeteria. Behind rows of little windows were sandwiches, pies, macaroni and cheese, soup, and other premade dishes. A patron would choose an item, then drop coins into a slot next to the desired delicacy. The window would open, and the hungry customer would remove the dish. (A clerk was available to make change.) It was all ultramodern in 1895, when it was invented—though, of course, food workers scurried invisibly behind the little windows, filling them.
The film short Egg Cream documents the story of that soda fountain delicacy (which contains neither egg nor cream) invented by Eastern European immigrants in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1880s—an ice cream sundae for the impoverished. What some call nostalgia, others call history, and vice versa.
Comedy is represented by Mel Brooks: The 99-Year-Old Man. The former title refers to a famous routine Brooks performed with Carl Reiner, where he pretended to be the 2000-Year-Old Man, who recalled all of human history. (“Did you practice polygamy in those days?” Reiner asked. “I never practiced; I was perfect at it,” Brooks replied.) The documentary is codirected by Judd Apatow.
Stiller and Meara: Nothing Is Lost is a documentary about the comedy duo who investigated the anxiety of personal relationships, while remaining married for 61 years. Their son, Ben Stiller, directed the film.
The largest and most famous of the Borscht Belt hotels was Grossinger’s, the subject of the opening night film, We Met at Grossinger’s. Beginning as a small boardinghouse in 1914, the resort eventually comprised 35 buildings and a dining room that seated 1,300. Today’s young people, who endure the multiple humiliations of computer dating, must envy the economical ease of “singles’ weekends” at Grossinger’s. The resort was the inspiration for the 1987 film Dirty Dancing.
The Jewish enclave in the Catskills grew partly out of necessity. Many resorts in the early 20th century would not serve Jews. But not everyone at Grossinger’s was Jewish. Ringside in the Mountains tells the story of hundreds of boxers who came to the Catskills to train, beginning in the 1930s. Future legends like Sonny Liston, Mohammed Ali, Joe Frazier, were accepted in the resorts, at a time when hotels often shunned African-Americans.
But the Borscht Belt was not just resorts; there were also summer camps, bungalow colonies, guest houses. The Floaters, set in the present, is a feature film about an Orthodox Jewish summer camp. The title refers to campers who won’t choose any activities, who just “float.” These alienated nonconformists band together to perform a play. The Floaters, which features Steve Guttenberg as a camp counselor, was voted “best comedy” at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival.
The weekend is sponsored by the Borscht Belt Museum, which is only a block away from the Shadowland Stages. Housed in a former bank, the museum explores the Catskills’ Jewish resort history and its lasting influence on American comedy, cuisine, and culture.
My favorite part of a film festival are the question-and-answer sessions with directors and actors. This fest has one following each screening, and after the Q&A, film goers are invited across the street to Tony & Nick’s Italian Kitchen, to continue the conversation.
This article appears in November 2026.
