Washington, D.C.-based filmmaker Aviva Kempner (co-director, co-producer) has been making award-winning documentaries about underknown Jewish heroes and social justice for more than forty-four years. Aviva recently completed A Pocketful of Miracles: A Tale of Two Siblings (2023), which chronicles the heroism of the two Ciesla Foundation namesakes, Helen Ciesla Covensky and David Chase—siblings who survived the Holocaust separately and managed to reunite after the war.

The Ciesla Foundation was founded in 1979 by filmmaker Aviva Kempner, who serves as the executive director. Ciesla’s films have received numerous honors and awards including top honors from the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, a George Foster Peabody Award, The Ken Burns Award, and CINE Golden Eagle Awards.