Shown at Filmex '81, Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg's Brighton Beach is a visual portrait of one of Brooklyn's most interesting neighborhoods, just down the boardwalk from Coney Island. “Brighton Beach is a film about survival, uprootedness, immigration, racism...marriage...how the poor find pleasure, how the old stay young, how people in crowded places share space, how the melting pot won't melt.... It is a film about a corner of gentleness and relief in a tough town....” (C. Stein/S. Wittenberg)
“The filmmakers interviewed locals of various ethnic persuasions (with a particular focus on the recent influx of Soviet Jews), interspersing everything with stock footage of Coney Island in the '30s and moody shots of the boardwalk at dawn. A cameo by the Barry Sisters makes the film a must for connoisseurs of Yiddish kitsch”--J. Hoberman, Village Voice