Filmaker and Pelham Native Beth Lane Returns to Westchester
UnBroken, the award-winning documentary by debut filmmaker and former Pelham resident Beth Lane, will screen at The Picture House in Pelham on Thursday November 6th at 7:30 PM. The screening will be followed by a post-film Q&A with Lane and a discussion led by TPH Film Club host and veteran film critic Joe Neumaier, the esteemed host of The Movie Minute on 710AM-WOR.
“We’re honored to welcome Beth Lane and her extraordinary film UnBroken back to Pelham,” said Clayton Bushong, Executive Director of The Picture House Regional Film Center. This screening marks a heartfelt return for Beth Lane and her husband Joel Moody, who lived in Pelham for 13 years, where they raised their three sons before relocating to California in 2007. Joel was a founding board member of The Picture House, and their three children attended Hutchinson Elementary School, Pelham Middle School and the Pelham Jewish Center. Joel is a partner at Rockwood Capitol and, alongside his wife of 33 years, has taken on the role of Executive Producer for UnBroken.
This screening, scheduled to honor and commemorate Kristallnacht, invites audiences to come together as a community and bear witness to a miraculous true survival story — and join a broader mission of empathy and resistance against modern-day hate.
UnBroken tells the miraculous true story of the seven Weber siblings, ages 6-18, who evaded certain capture and death, and ultimately escaped Nazi Germany relying solely on their youthful bravado and the kindness of strangers, following their mother’s incarceration and murder at Auschwitz. After being hidden in a laundry hut by a benevolent German farmer and his wife, the children spent two years on their own in war-torn Germany. Emboldened by their father’s mandate that they ‘always stay together,’ the children used their own cunning instincts to fight through hunger, loneliness, rape, bombings and fear. Climatically separated from their father, the siblings are forced to declare themselves as orphans to escape to a new life in America. Unbeknownst to them, this salvation would become what would finally tear them apart, not to be reunited for another 40 years.
Filmmaker Beth Lane, daughter of the youngest Weber sibling, embarks on a quest to retrace their steps, seeking answers to long-held questions about her family’s survival. Through intimate interviews, animation and on-the-ground exploration across Germany & America, Lane uncovers not only her family’s legacy—but a message of defiant love in the face of hatred.
The Weber Family Arts Foundation, Lane’s non-profit, and Submarine Entertainment launched UnBroken on Netflix on April 23rd – Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) and soared to the Top 10 movies in the U.S., ranking #5. As antisemitism and intolerance continue to rise globally, UnBroken offers a powerful reminder of what humanity can overcome — and what we must never allow again. To date, UnBroken has had over 1.5 million streams.
UnBroken is Beth Lane’s feature directorial debut, and it is both a professional milestone and a personal quest to immortalize the incredible story of the Weber siblings’ survival as the only family of seven Jewish siblings living in Nazi Germany known to have survived and emigrated together to the United States. A compelling story of resilience and a powerful film about an extraordinary family who survived the unthinkable, the film asks viewers the unsettling question, “Would you hide me?” bringing history into the present.
Filmmaker Beth Lane said: “I’m especially excited to bring UnBroken home to Pelham—where my husband and I bought our first house, and where we began our family… our eldest son became a Bar Mitzvah at The Pelham Jewish Center! To return to Pelham with this very personal story, at this extraordinarily critical moment in history, feels incredibly full-circle. I wasn’t trying to make a political or religious statement when I set out to tell my family’s story. UnBroken is something much deeper—it’s a spiritual confession and exploration of the soul. I created it as an antidote to hate, a way to build bridges between communities, and a chance for audiences to exercise their muscles of empathy and compassion.
“What the world is going through right now feels unprecedented. But the truth is, I no longer see antisemitism as something that’s ‘on the rise’—it’s here. It’s loud. It’s in our faces in the most horrifying ways. And now, so is ICE. In the midst of all this, to have UnBroken continue receiving invitations to screen in iconic movie houses, such as The Pelham Picture House is remarkable. I’m immensely grateful that UnBroken is streaming on Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Fandango, Google, and YouTube—and yet, despite its wide availability, audiences still want to come together in brick-and-mortar cinemas to come together as a community. That means everything to me. It’s not just about sharing my family’s miraculous story—it’s about putting something into the world that speaks to love, courage and the power of cultural understanding.
“I genuinely believe UnBroken carries a message that is both timely and timeless—it’s necessary. And I trust that after audiences witness my mother and her siblings’ journey, the story will stays—not just as a reflection, but as a call to examine one’s own identity, to care more fiercely, and most of all, to stand up for one another,” said Lane.
UnBroken had its festival premiere at the 23rd Heartland International Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary Premiere. It was then screened at over 40+ festivals nationwide, including DOC NYC, with Q&As moderated by Derba Messing and Ruth Messinger. It has won numerous awards, including the Audience Choice award at the Berkshire International Film Festival, the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival and the River Run International Film Festival. It has screened at The Museum of Jewish Heritage and The United Nations-sponsored event at The Center for Jewish History, and the UN in Vienna, as well as The Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. UnBroken also had an Academy-qualifying, limited theatrical release beginning Feb 21st through Greenwich Entertainment. A free screening of UnBroken, at the legendary Paris Theatre in NYC during Holy week last April, secured over 1100 reservations. The theatre was sold out with over 450 audience attendees.
