Doc on Catskill Game Farm kicks off Woodstock Film Fest
‘A far more complicated history’
I’ll spare my older siblings any photos here, but if you grew up in the Hudson Valley, there’s a good chance you went to the Catskill Game Farm to pet some adorably tame deer, donkeys and sheep. There were even rhinos, giraffes, and lions there. But the story of the Catskill Game Farm, and what happened when filmmakers discovered thousands of archived materials and home movies, have “revealed a far more complicated history.”
Before closing in 2006 after 73 years in operation, the Catskill Game Farm was noted as America’s first and eventually largest privately-owned zoo, founded in 1933 by German immigrant Roland Lindemann. A new documentary, American Zoo, premiering locally this week as part of the Woodstock Film Festival, explores the history of the game farm, and how Lindemann’s decision in 1959 to bring German zoologist Dr. Heinz Heck to America as zoo director, a move that filmmakers say “would forever entwine the attraction with a disturbing zoological legacy.”
American Zoo will kick off this year’s Woodstock Film Festival on Tuesday, October 13, 2026 at 7pm at the Community Theater, 373 Main Street in Catskill, followed by a conversation with director Tim Travers Hawkins and special guests. The movie will also screen on Sunday at the Rosendale Theater. See the full schedule, here: https://woodstockfilmfestival.eventive.org/schedule
Amazing Live Sea Monkeys – and their dark secret – to screen
Another childhood throwback will screen this weekend as part of the Woodstock Film Festival: Amazing Live Sea Monkeys, the New York premiere from Kingston-based director Aaron Schock follows the story of Yolanda Signorelli, a widow “engaged in a David-and-Goliath battle to wrest control of her late husband Harold’s iconic toy Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys back from the corporate men who she insists stole them from her.” The film follows the couple’s work together for over 40 years, dark secrets and all, including that Yolanda alone possesses the true Sea-Monkeys formula “and she alone must free them, not only from their captors, but also from the stain of her husband’s tarnished legacy.” Premiering at the Woodstock Playhouse on Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 9:45am. Link
Hudson Valley stories on the big screen
Find local stories screening across the festival this week, including:
Our Dark Horse, a Hudson Valley-made documentary following the life of a former racehorse named Kitty at a horse sanctuary in Greenville, will have its world premiere on Saturday, October 17 at 2pm at The Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties followed by a Q&A. Watch the trailer
Melissa Leo, a Hudson Valley resident for nearly 30 years, will star as a retired schoolteacher estranged from her daughter in Mother Wolf, shot primarily in Stone Ridge. The film will have its world premiere on Saturday.
Rain Reign, premiering locally this week, was filmed on location across the Hudson Valley and stars one of the area’s favorite candy shop-ownin’ celebs: Paul Rudd.
Amanda Seyfried, a full-time Hudson Valley resident who recently performed a beautiful rendition of “A Case of You” as part of an O-Positive Festival Joni Mitchell tribute, will star in the Hudson Valley premiere of The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd by Tim Blake Nelson on Thursday in Woodstock.
Lunatic Dreamers, a portrait of Hudson Valley band, The Felice Brothers, will have its world premiere this week followed by a special live performance at Assembly in Kingston. (Standby only)
In the short film, Woodstock, NY May 26th at 5:08PM, John Quinn, animator-in-residence at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony, turned a conversation with a friendly stranger into an animated snapshot of a time and place in the small town of Woodstock. Screening October 18 at 1:45pm as part of the Made in the Hudson Valley Shorts program.
Sullivan Fire, a 25-minute documentary premiering at the Woodstock Film Festival on Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 1:45pm. Set in New York’s Catskill Mountains, the film follows volunteer firefighters across generations: veteran members preparing to step aside and a new generation learning what it means to step up. It brings viewers inside the firehouse and onto calls while asking a question facing communities across the country: Who will answer the call next?
Also on our WFF watchlist: IndieWire’s live podcast recording with filmmaker Guy Nattiv and actress Carrie Coon at the Woodstock Playhouse on Wednesday (Free with RSVP required); Woodstockers TV pilot and talk-back with series star, co-writer and executive producer Corbin Bernsen (free event); animator Bill Plympton joins fellow independent animator Signe Baumane on Friday for an afternoon retrospective of Bill's most-beloved shorts, intermingled by rapid conversations on the secrets behind Bill’s long and successful career; Expulsion, based on debut director’s Zonia Pelensky’s Ukrainian-American upbringing in the East Village starring Jemima Kirke; Tangles starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Abbi Jacobson, Bryan Cranston, Beanie Feldstein, and Seth Rogen, following a free-spirited, gay activist and artist in 1990’s San Francisco is compelled to return to her small, conservative hometown to care for her vibrant mother, who is struck by Alzheimer’s, screening Thursday at 3:45pm in Woodstock followed by a Q&A with Director Leah Nelson; a three-song performance by Little Feat members following a doc and director Q&A on Sunday; and Films Not Made, a live panel podcast with Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton on the “ghosts of films that never came to be.”
The Woodstock Film Festival takes place October 14-18, 2026 with screenings at locations in Woodstock, Rosendale, Kingston, Saugerties and Catskill. See the full line-up and schedule at https://woodstockfilmfestival.org
Film fest offering packages for area residents
This year’s Woodstock Film Festival will feature “the largest number of Made in the Hudson Valley films to ever screen at the festival,” organizers say, with new ticket and dining packages available for local residents.
“The Hudson Valley has been our home since our inception back in 2000, shaping our identity and inspiring our journey, and the community here has been an essential part of our path forward throughout it all,” said Meira Blaustein, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Woodstock Film Festival. “Every fall our neighbors welcome filmmakers and audiences from around the world, fill our theaters and restaurants, and help create the energy that makes this Festival so special. We wanted to find a meaningful way to make the Festival more accessible to the people who live here and give our local community even more opportunities to experience it together, making ours, theirs too.”
HV Locals Date Night: A two-pack of screening tickets at 25-percent off the regular price, allowing residents to bring a friend, date, family member or neighbor to an eligible Festival screening. Purchasers will also receive 10–15% off at participating local restaurants, including, The Dutch, Medo, Brickmen Kitchen + Bar, The Cornell Restaurant + Bar, Cucina, and Darlings.
HV Local Film Buffs: A six-pack of screening tickets offering local cinephiles the opportunity to see up to six eligible Festival films while saving $20 off the regular package price.
HV Locals Reel Deal Pass: A full festival pass offering access to screenings, panels, parties, the Maverick Awards Ceremony, Festival Kick-off and Opening Night, Closing Night and Centerpiece films at $200 off the regular price.
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