Laemmle Theatres and First Run Features will showcase “Four Seasons Lodge,” a new feature documentary directed by N.Y. Times journalist Andrew Jacobs.
From the darkness of Nazi-occupied Europe to the lush mountains of New York’s Catskills, ” Four Seasons Lodge” documents what might be the final season for a community of Holocaust survivors who come together each summer to celebrate their lives.
Photographed by a team of cinematographers led by Albert Maysles (“Gimme Shelter,” “Grey Gardens”), this unexpectedly humorous film takes on sobering topics like aging and the legacy of the Holocaust in a uniquely life-affirming way, capturing the Lodgers’ intoxicating passion for living, in bracing contrast to lives harrowed by loss. Says Fran Lask, 82, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen: “This is our revenge on Hitler. To live this long, this well, is a victory.”
Filmmaker Andrew Jacobs has been a staff writer at the N.Y. Times for the past 10 years, where he has covered a wide variety of beats, from the American South and the aftermath of September 11, to New Jersey politics and the New York City Police Department. He is currently a correspondent in the Beijing bureau. The idea for the docugrew out of a six-part series Jacobs did for the Times about summer life in the Catskills.
Jacobs says, “As the world continues to grapple with war and genocide, we think audiences will embrace this astonishing tribe of survivors who have found a way to find joy in life despite having endured unimaginable atrocity. People will be moved by the Lodgers and enriched by their wisdom, strength and humor.”
