AMERICAN ZOO
THURS, 12/10, 1:00pm, 86 min
BAY STREET THEATER
Director Tim Travers Hawkins in attendance for Q&A
Director: Tim Travers Hawkins
Producers: Julia Nottingham, Melanie Archer, Kat Peschken, India Woods
Editors: Christopher A. Peterson, Peter Norey
Cinematographers: Patrick Smith, Joe Bender, Mikul Eriksson, Kelly Adams, Issac Mead-Long
Lost films found in the ruins of America’s once-largest private zoo unlock a remarkable saga of two families–the Lindemanns and the Hecks–entwined in a story of myth, power, and obsession. To tourists, the Catskill Game Farm was pure family fun, but behind the fences lurked something stranger: attempts to resurrect primordial superbeasts from extinction, the byproduct of Nazi experiments to bend nature to fascist dreams, hidden in plain sight.
Tim Travers Hawkins is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker known for cinematic and investigative work. He began filmmaking in Latin America. His film Persona explores discrimination in pre-employment personality assessments; Burn It Down is about toxic masculinity in the music industry; and Capturing the Killer Nurse follows a nurse in pursuit of a hospital serial killer.