Doors open at 5 PM
Join us for a screening of THE LAST LAUGH followed by a Q&A and panel discussion with director Ferne Pearlstein, Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall and other panelists.
This event is brought to you by the Colorado Mesa University Civic Forum, The City of Grand Junction and is the keynote presentation for the Twentieth Annual Holocaust Awareness Series at CMU.
THE LAST LAUGH dares to ask: "Are we allowed to joke about the Holocaust?" This outrageously funny and thought-provoking film puts the question about comedy's ultimate taboo to legends like Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Gilbert Gottfried, and other critical thinkers, including survivors, offering fresh insights into the Holocaust, and what else—9/11, AIDS, racism—is or isn't off-limits in a society that prizes freedom of speech. After premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, THE LAST LAUGH screened at over 100 festivals around the world, was released theatrically in over 25 cities, and went on to broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens.
Ferne Pearlstein is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. A graduate of Stanford’s MA program in documentary film, a distinguished member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and an inductee of the Brooklyn Jewish Hall of Fame, she has collaborated with some of the biggest names in documentary film. Winner of the Sundance Cinematography Prize for IMELDA (2004), about the former First Lady of the Philippines, Ferne has directed, produced and/or photographed around the world, from Japan to Haiti to Uganda to Guyana to Burma, where she snuck her 16mm camera into the rebel army bases of the Karen Liberation Army. She has had four features premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Recently, Ferne was selected by the UN and Google as one of only eight filmmakers from around the globe to direct a series of PSAs about building a sustainable planet that premiered on YouTube and were featured at the 2020 United Nations General Assembly. Ferne continues to travel around the world with THE LAST LAUGH, and as a result has become a recognized author and speaker on humor as it relates to the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, racism, and other topical issues, including the Covid-19 pandemic. Continuing along that path, Ferne is presently in pre-production on her latest film, A FINE LINE about comedy and race, which she is co-directing with Jon-Sesrie Goff, the award-winning director of the feature documentary, AFTER SHERMAN (2022).