DOK.fest München meets U.S. Consulate General in Munich & Amerikahaus
As part of DOK.aroundtheclock, we present the documentary A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES: A TALE OF TWO SIBLINGS in cooperation with the U.S. Consulate General in Munich and the Amerikahaus.
Berlin-born, Washington, D.C.-based filmmaker Aviva Kempner has been making award-winning documentaries about unrecognized Jewish heroes for more than four decades. In A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES: A TALE OF TWO SIBLINGS she focuses on the story of her mother, Helen Ciesla Covensky, and her uncle, David Chase – siblings who survived the Holocaust separately and were reunited after the war.
The diplomatic missions of the USA in Germany regularly invite US experts to Germany as part of the ‘U.S. Speaker Program’ to discuss current topics with an interested audience of experts.
A talk with director Aviva Kempner will take place after the screening.
Moderator: Prof. Dr. Kevin Ostoyich (Valparaiso University)
- Venue: Amerikahaus, Karolinenplatz 3, 80333 Munich
- Admission is free. Please register via this registration form.
In cooperation with:
Photos:
Scenes from "A Pocketful of Miracles" © The Ciesla Foundation
Portrait of the director © Bruce Guthrie
A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES: A TALE OF TWO SIBLINGS
USA 2023 – Director: Aviva Kempner – Free admission – Length: 106 min.
A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES: A TALE OF TWO SIBLINGS is a family memoir focusing on the pre-war and wartime experiences of siblings Hanka Ciesla, who passed as a Polish Catholic within Germany, and Dudek Ciesla, who survived Auschwitz, and the story of Harold Kempner, who captured their reunion in Berlin as a military government journalist. The film ends with their rebuilt lives in America.
Interviews of Helen Ciesla Covensky and David Chase are from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, conducted by Rosalie Franks, 1997 and filmed by Tom Landis and Abraham Olman.
Washington, DC based filmmaker Aviva Kempner has been making award winning documentaries about unrecognized Jewish heroes for 44 years. Kempner just completed A Pocketful of Miracles: A Tale of Two Siblings (2023). She co-directed, co-wrote and co-produced Imagining the Indians: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting (2022), a documentary on the movement to remove Native American names, logos, and mascots from the world of sports. Her The Spy Behind Home Plate (2019) is about baseball player and OSS spy Moe Berg. Kempner made Rosenwald (2015), a documentary about how philanthropist Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington in establishing over 5,000 schools for African Americans in the Jim Crow South. She also made Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009), about Gertrude Berg who created the first television sitcom. She also wrote and directed the short film Today I Vote for My Joey (2002), a tragic comedy about the 2000 Presidential Elections in Palm Beach County. Kempner directed the Peabody awarded The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1999), about the Hall of Famer slugger who faced anti-Semitism during the 1930s. She also produced the award-winning Partisans of Vilna (1986), about Jews fighting the Nazis. She is presently finishing a film on famous screenwriter and journalist Ben Hecht, who was an activist who exposed the horrors of the Holocaust to the American public and advocated to bring more Jews to U.S. shores. Kempner is also making Pissed Off, a documentary short exploring the struggles faced by female lawmakers in Congress who advocated for potty parity in the United States Capitol. Kempner is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Writer: Lucia Fox-Shapiro, Aviva Kempner. Editing: Lucia Fox-Shapiro. Music: John Keltonic. Production: N.N.. Producer: Aviva Kempner.
