‘Sturgeon Queens’ airs this Sunday

“The Sturgeon Queens,” a documentary that follows four generations of the Jewish immigrant family that started Russ & Daughters Appetizing in 1914 and still owns and runs the business, debuted last week and will air this Sunday at 9:30 am and 7 pm on WLIW21 (and at 2:30 pm on WNET13).

The film traces the family’s progression from the early 20th century, when Joel Russ came from a shtetl in Eastern Europe to a tenement in New York and began selling herring from a push cart, to today, when two of his great-grandchildren preside over a thriving store and café praised by critics and an adoring crowd of Jewish and gentile foodies.

The film features interviews with prominent customers including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actor Maggie Gyllenhaal, chef Mario Batali, journalist Morley Safer and writer Calvin Trillin. 

The film is built around a poignant, feisty, often hilarious, side-by-side interview with Hattie Russ Gold (who passed away April 2014) and Anne Russ Federman, two of the original daughters for whom the store was named — at the time, a radical move in a city of businesses passed down to sons.

Rather than a traditional narrator, six longtime customers in their 80s and 90s sit around a table, reading the script — but they are not just script readers but characters in and of themselves.