American Zoo [Tribeca Festival Review]

by Mike McGranaghan

I was not prepared for where American Zoo was going to go. World premiering in the Documentary Competition section of the 2026 Tribeca Festival, director Tim Travers Hawkins’ film starts off sweetly. We hear the story of Roland Lindemann, a German immigrant who loved animals. He opened The Catskill Game Farm, America’s first private zoo, in Catskill, New York. People showed up in droves to see his specimens, which had the luxury of living in open spaces rather than cages. Newly unearthed footage shows guests having the time of their lives viewing, feeding, and riding elephants, llamas, and giraffes, among others. It all seems perfectly wonderful.

But this is not a happy story. Not at all. Lindemann’s zoo director was a man named Heinz Heck. He was obsessed with the idea of breeding animals in specific ways in order to bring back extinct species. While The Catskill Game Farm looked like a paradise on the surface, behind the scenes it had disturbing connections to the Nazi eugenics movement. The many Jewish guests, who came while visiting the Catskills every year, had no clue.

Through archival footage and interviews with Lindemann’s daughter, Heck’s daughter, and former employees, American Zoo details the horrifying truth of what went on. Every time you think it can’t possibly get more shocking, it does. Hawkins never flinches in laying bare the awful facts, which include inhuman treatment of animals undergoing the breeding process. He additionally provides a thorough history of the Heck family and their Nazi connections. What it demonstrates is that the eugenics movement survived after the Holocaust ended, it just morphed into a different form.

It is the starkness that makes this documentary so powerful. The archival footage speaks volumes, as does the new footage of the employees nostagically revisiting the now desolate zoo. The clash between its idealistic beginnings and its troubled end is remarkable, holding you in its grip for the film’s 85-minute running time. Testimony from the daughters is similarly absorbing, as they offer honest, unfiltered takes on their families.

American Zoo is a quintessential portrait of the dark side of Americana. Things that seem so delightful on the surface can have unpleasantries hiding underneath. This riveting documentary is guaranteed to leave you feeling rocked.

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