For Immediate Release
Ciesla Foundation receives grant to promote racial healing through distribution of Rosenwald
film and bonus features
Washington, DC (April 21, 2018) – The Ciesla Foundation will distribute and showcase the DVD and bonus features of its fourth film, Rosenwald, as part of an ongoing effort to promote racial equity and social justice.
The outreach project is supported in part by a $173,614 grant from W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. With this support, the Rosenwald DVD will have a wider release of the film at schools, universities, religious institutions and communities, especially those undergoing racial and economic tensions and anti-Semitic attacks.
“The Rosenwald film and its uplifting messages of unity across racial and cultural lines continues to inspire a new generation and to reinvigorate the spirit of cooperation and speaking out against injustice,” said director Aviva Kempner. “One goal of the project is to continue events on college campuses and community groups screening the Rosenwald DVD set with educational programs, especially directed to serve as rapid responses to racist and anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses.”
A tour of the film at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) was initiated last year to encourage a better understanding of cultural history, the Jim Crow era and Great Migration, and race relations and is conducted in the spirit of the Rosenwald Fund and its focus on giving.
The tour will continue as part of this outreach, placing special emphasis on scheduling joint programs between African American and Jewish groups, who were natural allies in the past for reasons celebrated in Rosenwald. These film screenings and discussions will allow for the rekindling of those historic alliances.
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About The Ciesla Foundation
Based in Washington, D.C., The Ciesla Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public, tax-exempt educational organization. Ciesla (pronounced CHESH-lä) produces documentaries that investigate non- stereotypical images of Jews in history and celebrates the untold stories of Jewish heroes. Ciesla was founded in 1979 by filmmaker Aviva Kempner, who serves as the executive director.
The Ciesla Foundation’s other documentaries, including Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and Partisans of Vilna, have received numerous honors and awards including top honors from the Peabody Award, National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the CINE Golden Eagle Award. Through insightful and revealing storytelling, interviews with key figures and wide distribution, The Ciesla Foundation’s films assure worthy individuals their rightful places in history.
About the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer, Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.
The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special emphasis is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti. For more information,
visit www.wkkf.org.