Cape Cod: 'Four Seasons Lodge" premiere

If you'll be on Cape Cod (Massachusetts) next week, attend this film premiere of "Four Seasons Lodge," which views Holocaust survivors in the Catskills' Borscht Belt.

Phil Brown of the Catskills Institute has shared the news that film will premiere at the Provincetown International Film Festival, June 17 -21.

It is by New York Times reporter Andrew Jacobs and the legendary Albert Maysles (other cinematographers include Justin Schein and Avi Kastoriano).

The moving and startlingly entertaining documentary, to be released theatrically nation-wide this fall by First Run Features, follows the last summer in the Borscht Belt for an amazing collective of genocide survivors who, having endured the worst of humanity, gather to cook, gamble, flirt, fight and celebrate life, while reliving their harrowing pasts.

Every Saturday night is a party in their homemade casino: women do their hair, men wear jackets and ties, and they dance, often past midnight. The subjects are part of a remarkable tribe whose members are fast disappearing – Holocaust survivors with a unique joie de vivre and a bracing sense of humor.

The film will screen at 4.30pm on Thursday, June 18, and Saturday, June 20, at The Vixen, in the Pilgrim House. Producer Matt Lavine will do a Q&A after each screening.

One of the world's most celebrated documentarians, Maysles, 81, pioneered "direct cinema," a distinctly American take on French cinema verité, which captures life as it is, without sets, scripts or other cinematic contrivances. This film showcases a refreshingly modern take, mixing the classic Maysles-brothers style with powerful nature cinematography.

“When Andrew approached me I was deeply inspired by these worldly, complicated people whose positive outlooks were remarkable given their horrific WWII experiences,” Maysles said. “I was immediately drawn to them and made an instant, almost familial connection. My parents were Russian immigrants and I grew up with anti-Semitism all around me in Boston.”

If you will be in the "neighborhood" during the festival, try to see it.