Ken Kimmelman is an American filmmaker, animator, and Aesthetic Realism consultant. He is the president of Imagery Film, Ltd. and is known for his films opposing racism and prejudice, including The Heart Knows Better, a public service film for which he received a National Emmy Award and Brushstrokes, produced for the United Nations. Both films were inspired by Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy whose founder, Eli Siegel, identified contempt, "the addition to self through the lessening of something else" as the cause of racism and all human injustice. Kimmelman is also noted for his Poetry film, Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana, based on the prize-winning poem by Eli Siegel. Historian Howard Zinn said of this film, "It matches, in its visual beauty, the elegance of Siegel's words, and add