American Zoo (Woodstock Film Festival)
- Tue, Oct 13
Midnite weekend screenings happen on Friday & Saturday nights,. so please be sure to arrive on Friday and/or Saturday night by 11:45pm for seating and the screening will start after midnight.
Run Time: 90 min.
The 27th Annual Woodstock Film Festival kicks off with the Hudson Valley premiere of American Zoo. The post-screening Q&A features director Tim Travers Hawkins and special guests, moderated by Noah Eckstein, founding editor-in-chief of The Overlook News.
About the Film: Every documentary filmmaker dreams of finding a lost archive and hidden history. With American Zoo, director Tim Travers Hawkins found both. This gripping film unravels the hidden history of a beloved local attraction – the Catskill Game Farm – and the complex bond between humans and animals. – Jessica Edwards
Tim Travers Hawkins is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker known for cinematic and investigative nonfiction exploring systems of power, justice and institutional accountability. His debut feature, XY Chelsea, premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and earned two Documentary Emmy Award nominations. His other work includes The Movement for The Guardian, Persona for HBO Max, Burn It Down! for Paramount and Capturing the Killer Nurse for Netflix. Hawkins studied filmmaking at EICTV in Cuba and trained in Latin America with filmmakers Fernando Birri and Pino Solanas. His latest feature documentary, American Zoo, had its World Premiere at the 2026 Tribeca Festival.
Noah Eckstein is the founding editor-in-chief of The Overlook, a nonprofit news outlet providing public-service journalism across seven towns in the Catskills. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, Semafor, Variety, The Guardian and Fast Company, among other national and international publications.