FESTIVAL ORGANIZERS
Planning Committee
Melody Gilbert, Festival Director
Melody is an award-winning filmmaker, educator, and veteran of attending hundreds of film festivals since she made her first documentary in 2001. Along the way, she directed, produced, and filmed over a dozen docs, became a film professor (in the U.S. and overseas in Bulgaria), and kept attending film festivals. At some point, she started helping with programming festivals, teaching master classes and workshops at festivals (including teaching her Documentary Boot Camp) and being on juries, where she learned the innerworkings of the film festival world. She is still making docs and her newest is a work-in-progress about her personal experience with the scandalous monokini (topless) in1964. When asked if she would run the first Borscht Belt Film Fest, Melody jumped at the opportunity, especially because she remembers vacationing here with her family at the Concord and Grossinger’s, and she recently discovered her grandparents also vacationed up here when she found two viewfinder key chain souvenirs of them at the Pines and Brown's. After living in Minnesota, Bulgaria and most recently Louisiana, Melody recently moved to Kerhonkson full time with her husband, a sports journalist, and her dog Harry.
Jay Blotcher, Director of Programming
Jay proved his mania for cinema by fast-talking his way into the 1981 Cannes Film Festival as a college student. He wrote about film for numerous publications from 1982 to 2014. Currently, Jay is a film programmer at the Rosendale Theatre and an executive producer of a forthcoming documentary about activist Gilbert Baker, creator of the iconic LGBTQ Rainbow Flag. Jay has been a Hudson Valley resident since 2001.
Robin Cohen Kauffman, Vice President, Borscht Belt Museum.
Robin, a retired hospital administrator, volunteers for a number of nonprofit organizations, and has long had a hand in organizing Catskills reunions for Borscht Belt hotel staff, guests and nostalgics who are passionate about the period. Her work with the historic Touro Synagogue of Newport, R.I., the oldest synagogue in the U.S., left an indelible mark and motivated her to study the Jewish immigrant experience. As a child, Robin’s family vacationed in the Borscht Belt, and she worked at the Homowack Lodge while in college. She met her husband at the Concord Hotel.
Dr. Peter Alan Chester, Treasurer, Borscht Belt Museum
Peter has spent much of his life working in public education, and was founding director of the Bay Academy of the Arts and Sciences in Brooklyn. Peter’s affiliation with the Borscht Belt began in 1958, when his family spent their first summer at The Grand Mountain Hotel in Greenfield Park. At 9, he was the hotel’s newspaper boy; at 11 a busboy in the children’s dining room and at 14 he became a waiter. Peter also worked at The Concord, Grossingers and the Aladdin, where he was captain and later Maitre d’Hotel from 1974 until its closure in 1991. The child of Holocaust survivors, Peter was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives in Monticello.
Andrew Jacobs, President, Borscht Belt Museum
Andrew is a reporter for The New York Times, where he writes about global health for the Science section. He has written for the Metro, Styles and National sections, where he covered the American South, and he has reported from more than a dozen countries, including China, where he spent nearly eight years. He is also the director of “Four Seasons Lodge”, a documentary about a community of Holocaust survivors who shared a bungalow colony in Ellenville. He splits his time between Manhattan and a former dairy farm in Napanoch.
Scott Frost
Scott is a producer and stylist with a background in Broadway advertising, technical theatre/stage management, as well as concert and event production. Having worked to produce the visual campaigns for over 80 Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, Scott brings years of experience working in Broadway and as the Assistant Production Manager for a Saugatuck, MI, based concert production company producing events at universities (including Notre Dame), arena shows, festivals and events across the greater Midwest. Since buying his house in Ellenville in 2021, he and his husband have become involved with the local nonprofit Coalition of Forward Facing Ellenville, where Scott managed Market on Market, a bi-monthly farmers and artisan market in the heart of Ellenville. He now serves as the secretary and director of fundraising of COFFE, and is a member of Reservoir Studios.
Advisiory Board
Raphaela Neihausen
Raphaela Neihausen produced the Oscar-nominated short film Joe’s Violin and the feature documentary Miss Gulag. She is co-founder and executive director of DOC NYC, America's largest documentary festival. She co-hosts WNYC’s Documentary of the Week and executive produces the podcast Pure Nonfiction. She has served as the founding executive director for several festival startups including the Montclair Film Festival, Split Screens Festival, and 51Fest. Prior to her film career, she worked for seven years at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman), advising Fortune 100 companies on strategic growth. She holds a BSFS/MA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and lives in Montclair with her family. Growing up, she spent many summers up in the Catskills with her grandparents who had a bungalow, and she loves borscht!
Jay Blotcher
An original SNL writer, Alan Zweibel has won 5 Emmy Awards for his work in television which also includes "It's Garry Shandling's Show" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm." In the theater he collaborated with Billy Crystal on the Tony Award winning Broadway show "700 Sundays" , Martin Short's "Fame Becomes Me" and the off-Broadway hit "Bunny Bunny: Gilda Radner- A Sort of Romantic Comedy what he adapted from his bestselling book. All told, Alan has published eleven books that include a cultural memoir "Laugh Lines: My Life Helping Funny People be Funnier", the beloved children's book "Our Tree Named Steve" and the Thurber Prize winning novel "The Other Shulman." Because of the diversity of his body of work, the Writers Guild of America East has given Alan a Lifetime Achievement Award. Currently, Alan has co-written a new movie with Oscar winner Barry Levinson that Barry will direct and is writing a Broadway play about the life and comedy of Rodney Dangerfield.
Kelly Nathe
Kelly Nathe is a senior programmer and publicist for the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival (MSPIFF) and The Main Cinema, a 5-screen art house theater in the Twin Cities. She is also an Emmy-winning television producer and documentary filmmaker who got her start in the film biz as the photo double for Jean Lundegaard in the Oscar-winning film Fargo.
Susan Weiss
Susan Weiss trained as an attorney and has nearly 30 years of experience in nonprofit management, primarily in fund development and as the “right hand” to Chief Executive Officers as an experienced Chief of Staff (COS). As COS at the Jewish Museum in New York (2021-2024), Weiss managed or co-managed several special Director’s initiatives, including a major building renovation, implementation of the DEIA Plan, and the search for a new Café vendor. She was also the “voice” of the Director in Museum communications, including development and marketing materials. As COS at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History (2013-2021), Weiss helped improve corporate culture by increasing coordination and communication across the organization and ensuring alignment of Museum activities with the strategic plan. She also collaborated with the CEO on Board communications, meetings, and relationship-building. Other organizations for which she worked include ICA, Philadelphia; Annenberg Center; ICA, Boston; and Dance Umbrella, Boston. Weiss has a JD from Boston University and a BA from Wellesley College.
Ferne Pearlstein
Ferne Pearlstein is an award-winning producer, director, cinematographer, and editor who has made films all over the world. A winner of the Sundance Cinematography Prize for the feature documentary “Imelda,” about the former First Lady of the Philippines, and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, she has had four features premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, including her passion project "The Last Laugh.” starring Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Alan Zweibel, and 100-year-old Auschwitz survivor Renee Firestone, and many others. Most recently Ferne directed, produced, and edited “XCLD: The Story of Cancel Culture," a nuanced look at cancel culture, produced by Trevor Noah, which premiered at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and aired on MSNBC.
Laurel Fairworth
Laurel Fairworth is the President of Cachet Communications, a Public Relations, Marketing and Media Company and an Executive Producer at Laurellen Productions. She has expertise in creating and implementing special events, publicity, social media, and branding. She was a broadcast journalist for 20 years, appearing on-camera in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, West Palm Beach, Florida, and Tennessee. She distinguished herself with Emmy award nominations for in-depth reporting, spot news reporting and features. For twelve years following, Fairworth produced news segments for NBC’s Today Show, Nightly News, CNBC, and MSNBC. She was executive producer of the documentary Code Name: Ayalon, which has been airing on PBS across the country for the past two years and has now been picked up by a major studio. Her team is currently working on a documentary called Blews about the partnership between Blacks and Jews in music which is set to be completed by the end of the year.
Gregory Bray
Gregory Bray, PhD is the Chair of the Department of Digital Media and Journalism at SUNY New Paltz, where he has taught media production, theory, and writing courses since 2004. His film work has earned three Broadcast Education Association awards, the Telly Award, the CINE Golden Eagle, and has earned numerous accolades and screenings in international film festivals, including the Woodstock Film Festival, Milan Shorts Film Festival, and the Rochester International Film Festival, among others. He has written articles and book chapters on popular culture, including his upcoming edited collection, Women Vigilantes and Outlaws in Popular American Media: Who Was that Masked Woman? published by Routledge. In addition, Bray's work has been broadcast on statewide PBS and national television, and on WAMC and NPR radio. Bray is an Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Faculty Fellow alumnus. He lives in the Catskills with his family.
Donna Dickman
Donna Dickman is the former Focus Features SVP of publicity. She lead teams in developing integral marketing and media strategies. Currently working as a freelance awards consultant. AMPAS member and alumni of Camp Wel-Met in Narrowsburg NY. Her relatives used to own Sunrise Manor in Ellenville.
Borscht Belt Film Fest is a project of the Borscht Belt Museum. The museum is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Borscht Belt resort era, and celebrating its history as a refuge from bigotry, the cradle of stand-up comedy and a cultural catalyst that left deep imprints on America.