Washington, DC based filmmaker Aviva Kempner’s career goal is to make films about under known Jewish heroes. She has been making independent films that are theatrically released since 1979. Kempner produced and conceived of the award-winning Partisans of Vilna, (1986) about Jewish resistance against the Nazis, and executive produced the 1989 Grammy-award nominated record, Partisans of Vilna: The Songs of World War II Jewish Resistance.
Kempner is also the writer, director and producer of The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (2000), a documentary about the Jewish baseball slugger. The film was awarded top honors by the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. The film also received a George Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy.
She directed the tragic short comedy, Today I Vote for My Joey (2003) from the script she wrote about Election Day in Palm Beach for the AFI's Directing Workshop for Women. Kempner also wrote the narration for Promises to Keep, an Academy Award®-nominated documentary on the homeless.
Kempner is the writer, director and producer of the award winning Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009), a documentary on America’s favorite radio and television personality who invented the family sitcom.
She is presently making a documentary about how Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington in establishing over 5,300 schools for African Americans in the rural south. Rosenwald also gave fellowships to the major Black artists and intellectuals of his day. Kempner also co-wrote and is co-producing the dramatic script Navajo Nation.
Kempner founded the Washington Jewish Film Festival. Kempner has written film reviews for the past 25 years and has written for Washington Jewish Week and The Washington Post. She also lectures about cinema around the country. Kempner was the recipient of the 2009 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's Freedom of Expression Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, DC Mayor's Art Award, Women of Vision award and Media Arts Award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. Additionally, Aviva Kempner is the director and founder of The Ciesla Foundation, which is a 501 (c) (3) that produces and distributes films to educate the public on social issues of the past and present.
She is a voting rights advocate for the District of Columbia and lives in Ward 3. A child of a Holocaust survivor and a US Army officer, Ms. Kempner was born in Berlin, Germany after World War II. This legacy inspired Ms. Kempner to produce her first film, Partisans of Vilna.
Kempner is the recipient of the 2011 Washington Jewish Film Festival Visionary Award this month. The annual award recognizes and pays tribute to courage, creativity and insight in presenting the diversity of the Jewish experience through the moving image. In conjunction with the award, the WJFF is presenting a retrospective of several of Kempner's films: Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (December 9, free at 1:00 pm at 16th and Q), The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (December 11 at 2:30 pm at the Avalon Theatre) and Partisans of Vilna and the award ceremony (December 10th at 6:15 at 16th and Q.). Kempner will also present and discuss her newest project, The Rosenwald Schools, at a work-in-progress screening and discussion (December 11 at 10:30 am at 16th and Q.). The filmmaker will appear at all screenings of her work. See wjff.org for ticket details.
Visit our Previously Featured Filmmakers to see more Filmmakers of the Month.