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When Comedy Went to School

Jul 31, 2013 | IMDB 6.5

83 min Watch Now

Documentary

The birth of modern stand-up comedy began in the Catskill Mountains - a boot camp for the greatest generation of Jewish-American Comedians.

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SIMILAR MOVIES

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Outremont et les Hassidim

IMDB 0 | Apr , 2019

OUTREMONT AND THE HASIDIM reveals the challenges of accommodating the “Hasidim” – or ultra-Orthodox Jews – in the affluent Montréal borough of Outremont.​Some 7,000 Hasidim live in or near this choice neighbourhood of Québec’s Francophone elite. After settling there more than 70 years ago, the Hasidim are a rapidly growing minority group which today represents about 23% of Outremont’s population.​Thanks to unprecedented access to this self-isolated community, the film lifts the veil on its practices, traditions, music and life as they had never before been seen on Canadian television, without ignoring the community’s expectations, fears. and hopes.
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The Paper Brigade

IMDB 6 | Mar , 2018

Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.
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Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

IMDB 7.2 | Mar , 2020

Down the road from Woodstock in the early 1970s, a revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers, transforming their young lives and igniting a landmark movement.
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The Catskill Mountain House and the World Around

IMDB 0 | Jan , 2010

There isn't much left of the once-grand Catskill Mountain House. The lavish resort hotel was perched on a precarious ledge in Greene County for over a century. During its 19th-century heyday, the hotel embodied the peak of luxury for a generation of the rich and famous. But like many resort hotels of the Catskills' glittering past, the Mountain House fell into disuse in the 20th century and was finally destroyed by the state of New York in 1963 to return its scenic overlook to wilderness. The Catskill Mountain House and The World Around was given the Gold Remi Award by the 44th WorldFest Houston International Film Festival!
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Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas

IMDB 8 | Nov , 2017

An offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream – a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe.
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Warsaw: A City Divided

IMDB 6.8 | May , 2019

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.
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Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt

IMDB 0 | Sep , 1986

At its peak, one million New York Jews spent their summers in the Borscht Belt, the birthplace of Jewish-American iconoclastic humor. This film shows how these Catskills communities were run by women, and how class divisions were reflected in the resort hotels: upwardly-mobile hotel guests were entertained by a who's-who of talent, while in the bungalows, do-it-yourself burlesque and vaudeville reigned among the blue-collar families. This film is happy, humane, ironic, and, finally, bittersweet, as we see that today's Jews no longer share the tastes or aspirations of their parents.
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Life and Fate by Vassili Grossman

IMDB 7 | Jan , 2018

The convoluted and moving story of Russian writer Vassili Grossman (1905-64) and his novel Life and Fate (1980), a literary masterpiece, a monumental and epic account of life under Stalin's regime of terror, a defiant cry that the KGB tried to suffocate.
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People of the Graphic Novel

IMDB 0 | Jul , 2012

"People of the Graphic Novel" is a playful introduction to the history of an art form: from the first "funny pages" to seminal artists including Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman.
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Land of Little Rivers

IMDB 0 | Oct , 2019

The Land of Little Rivers, a network of tributaries in the Catskill Mountains of New York, is the birthplace of fly fishing in America and home to anglers obsessed by the sport.
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Zorro’s Bar Mitzvah

IMDB 5.5 | Mar , 2006

Four 12-year-olds—Sharon, Tom, Moishy, and Sophie—prepare for their bar or bat mitzvot.
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Love & Stuff

IMDB 8 | Nov , 2020

Seven months after helping her terminally ill mother during the end of her life in home-hospice, filmmaker Judith Helfand becomes a "new old" single mother at 50. Overnight, she's pushed to deal with her stuff: 63 boxes of her parent's heirlooms overwhelming her office-turned-future-baby's room, the weight her mother had begged her to lose, and the reality of being a half century older than her daughter.
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Absolutely No Spitting

IMDB 0 | Jan , 2021

Documentarian Judith Helfand adopts z daughter at the age of 50.
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Eight Nights

IMDB 0 | Dec , 2020

After years as a struggling actor, Daniel was cast to play a part in Conan O'Brien's "human-centipede-menorah." His bizarre experience evolved from one of shame into a deepening connection with his personal heritage, a reckoning with the choices he'd made, and ultimately a desire to tell the story of EIGHT NIGHTS. This is a film about our deep connection to the people we love. At a time when we couldn’t see some of those whom we love most, the making of this film felt even more poignant.
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Commie Camp

IMDB 0 | Aug , 2013

The history of Camp Kinderland, founded in the 1920s to provide Jewish children an escape from the hot New York City summers.
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Deep Water: Building the Catskill Water System

IMDB 0 | Jan , 2002

The 45-minute documentary celebrates the history of the Catskill Water System with rare archival film footage and historic photographs. Deep Water tells the story of the building of the Ashokan Reservoir, Shandaken Tunnel, Schoharie Reservoir, and the Catskill Aqueduct. Narrated by Robb Webb (the voice of "60 Minutes II"), Deep Water documents how several Catskill Mountain towns were destroyed and flooded, how immigrant workers built the dams and tunnels, and how brilliant engineering and political maneuvering allowed the system to be built.
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Jewish Delis: Something to Kvell About!

IMDB 7 | Aug , 2023

A celebration of a great Jewish-American tradition. Beginning as places for Jews from Central and Eastern Europe to eat and meet, they expanded across America and eventually attracted as many non-Jews as Jews. Today, the number of Jewish Delis has shrunk dramatically and many of the survivors have adapted to changing times, sometimes in ways their forebears might not recognize.
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Motion

IMDB 0 | Nov , 2025

On the way to creating a new future, the New Jewish Filmmaking Project is rediscovering the past. 11 young storytellers, ages 15-25, collaborated with Citizen Film’s team of documentary professionals to create a multimedia exhibit that offers a set of signposts for what Jewish identity has been and is becoming.
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Rails to the Catskills

IMDB 0 | Jan , 2014

RAILS TO THE CATSKILLS is a history of the dynamic railroad industry in the Catskills of New York State. Catskill railroads have roots in the canals of the 1820's and the post Civil War railroad boom.
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Mimi and Panda

IMDB 0 | Jan , 2020

For their joint Bat Mitzvahs, cousins Panda and Mimi made short films exploring what it means to them to be both Jewish and Chinese.