"WE MET AT GROSSINGER'S" in Encino

ABOUT THE FILM: We Met at Grossinger’s is a joyfully nostalgic journey through the Jewish Catskills - once known as the Borscht Belt - told through the rise and fall of its most beloved resort: Grossinger’s Resort and Hotel, the real-life inspiration for Dirty Dancing.

Built and run by three generations of trailblazing women, Grossinger’s Resort and Hotel stood at the center of a world Jews built for themselves after being shut out of America’s mainstream resorts and clubs. It became far more than a vacation destination - it was a sanctuary of identity, joy, and reinvention. Here, amid the laughter of comics, including Joan Rivers and Joel Grey, the brilliance of athletes, and the grace of guests like Jackie Robinson, Eddie Fisher, and Eleanor Roosevelt, Jewish Americans and other marginalized communities found a stage to redefine what it meant to be accepted, celebrated, and free. We Met at Grossinger's captures both the golden age and the fading echoes of the Catskills’ most beloved resort. It paints a sweeping portrait of an America in transformation - one that discovered, in the glow of the Borscht Belt, that inclusivity, creativity, and leisure lie at the very heart of the American dream.

Directed by Paula Eiselt
Produced by Robert Friedman and Mike Powers
Documentary/2025/United States/104 minutes

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Host or Publisher Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival