Feature Documentary Film details the past, present, and future of insidious Native American-themed mascots and imagery, including the Washington Football Team

For Immediate Release:

Washington, D.C. – Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting will make its world premiere at California’s American Indian & Indigenous Film Festival. The festival highlights the best of current films from American Indian filmmakers, producers, directors, and actors working through Indian Country. Imagining the Indian will close out the Festival on Sunday, April 3rd 2022 with a screening, Q&A, and post-screening reception. View the Trailer

“We are so proud to premiere this film at California’s American Indian & Indigenous Film Festival. We made this film for the good of Indian Country and with the support of Indian Country, and we are excited to debut at a festival focused on Native films and filmmakers,” said Co-Director Ben West.

Imagining the Indian is a comprehensive examination of the movement to eradicate the words, images, and gestures that many Native Americans and their allies find demeaning and offensive. Included among those is the former name and imagery of the Washington Football Team. While the filmmakers are encouraged by the Team’s announcement to move away from the racist name they profited from for decades, they realize that the fight against Native American Mascoting is far from over.

The Kansas City National Football League (NFL) Team, the Chicago National Hockey League (NHL) Team, and the Atlanta Major League Baseball (MLB) Team remain adamant that they will not change their team names or practices, including the insidious Tomahawk/Arrowhead Chop. Additionally, close to 2,000 secondary schools throughout the country still have harmful Native themed mascots. Imagining the Indian seeks to shine on a light on these harms.

“Changing the Washington Football Team’s name is long overdue, but the victory is only piecemeal until the other pro and amateur teams also choose new names,” said Co-Director Aviva Kempner.

“And eradicating Native American mascoting will rid us of its perniciousness, which is that exposure to it is at the root of negative stereotyping and treatment of all people of color,” said Co-Producer Kevin Blackistone.

The filmmaking team behind Imagining the Indian look forward to premiering the film at California’s American Indian & Indigenous Film Festival. The film is made possible by generous support from Executive Producers Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, and Co-Executive Producers Jessica and Steve Sarowitz.

The film is Produced by the Ciesla Foundation, Co-Directed and Co-Produced by Aviva Kempner and Ben West (Cheyenne), and Co-Produced by Kevin Blackistone, Yancey Burns, and Sam Bardley. Interviewees include Activist Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/Hodulgee Muscogee), Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), Olympic Gold-Medalist Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota), Founding Director of the National Museum of the American Indian W. Richard West Jr. (Southern Cheyenne), Washington Football Team Legend Charles Mann, Congressman Jamie Raskin, Broadcaster Bob Costas, and NAACP President Derrick Johnson, among many others.

For more information on Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting and California’s American Indian & Indigenous Film Festival, visit www.imaginingtheindianfilm.org and https://www.caiiff.com/.

Your Support Counts

The Ciesla Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Show your support for Imagining the Indian by sending a contribution today. As a donor, you will be listed on the film’s website. Your contribution is tax-deductible to the full extent permitted by law.

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Partnership Level

Interested in supporting at a partnership level? Please contact The Ciesla Foundation directly at 202.244.1347 or imagining.cieslafdn@gmail.com to discuss partnership opportunities.

Contributors of $10,000 or more will be listed in the film credits.

Aviva Kempner

Director | Producer

A Washington, D.C.-based filmmaker, creates successful and critically acclaimed documentaries about under-known Jewish heroes and social justice. In 2019, she premiered her fifth commercially-released film, The Spy Behind Home Plate. Her other films include Rosenwald, a documentary about how Chicago businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington in establishing over 5,000 schools for African Americans in the Jim Crow South, which she dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement; Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, about Gertrude Berg, who created the first television sitcom; and the Emmy-nominated and Peabody-awarded The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, about the Hall of Famer who faced anti-Semitism during the ’30s. Both Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, and Hank Greenberg grossed over a million dollars at the box office and are highly ranked, along with Rosenwald, on Rotten Tomatoes. She also produced the award-winning documentary Partisans of Vilna, about Jews fighting the Nazis.

Kempner also co-wrote and is co-producing the dramatic script Casuse with fellow Imagining the Indian director and producer Ben West. The film is about the Navajo activist Larry Casuse, who Kempner knew while a VISTA volunteer in New Mexico in the early ’70s. While attending the Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C., Kempner interned at the Office of the Solicitor at the Department of Interior’s Indian Affairs. Upon graduation, she worked at the National Tribal Chairman’s Association and the National Conference of American Indians.

Kempner is an activist and advocate for statehood for Washington, D.C.as a board member of DC Vote.