Paper Clips (film)

Paper Clips is a 2004 American documentary film written and produced by Joe Fab, and directed by Fab and Elliot Berlin, about the Paper Clips Project, in which a middle school class tries to collect 6 million paper clips to represent the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Paper Clips
Directed byElliot Berlin
Joe Fab
Written byJoe Fab
Produced byJoe Fab
Matthew Hiltzik
Robert M. Johnson
Ari Daniel Pinchot
StarringSandra Roberts
Peter Schroeder
Dagmar Schroeder
Tom Bosley
CinematographyMichael Marton
Edited byJulia Dixon-Eddy
Music byCharlie Barnett
Production
companies
Ergo Entertainment
The Johnson Group
Distributed byMiramax Films
Release dates
  • May 2, 2004 (2004-05-02) (Tribeca)
  • September 8, 2004 (2004-09-08)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesEnglish
German
Box office$1.2 million[1]

Synopsis

Paper Clips takes place in the rural, blue-collar Tennessee community of Whitwell, where a middle-school class attempts to gauge the magnitude of World War II's Holocaust by collecting paper clips, each of which represents a human life lost in the Nazis' slaughter of Jews.[2] The idea came in 1998 from three of the teachers at the school and was completed in their eighth grade classrooms.[3] The students ultimately succeeded in collecting over 25 million paperclips.[4]

Production

The documentary film about the project was officially released in 2004. This film's genesis lies with Rachel Pinchot who initially saw an article about the Whitwell Middle School in The Washington Post. She took the idea of a film to her husband, Ari Pinchot, of The Johnson Group. The Johnson Group sent a led by directors Joe Fab and Elliot Berlin to Whitwell to film key moments, such as the arrival of several Holocaust survivors from New York who shared their experiences with the community. They accumulated about 150 hours of footage over the course of the project. Out of that footage, Berlin created a seven-minute presentation which he sent to Matthew Hiltzik, then head of communications at Miramax. Hiltzik was impressed by the demo and showed it to the head of Miramax, convinced that the project was worth a full-length documentary. The film was produced by Fab, Hiltzik, Pinchot, and Robert M. Johnson.[5] Ergo Entertainment helped to produce the film, with its partners Donny Epstein, Yeeshai Gross, and Elie Landau joining the project as executive producers.[6]

The film was described as being not yet another movie showing the tragedy, but a project of hope and inspiration. The movie features interviews with students, teachers, Holocaust survivors, and people who sent paper clips. It also shows how the railcar traveled from Germany to Baltimore, and then Whitwell.[5] The movie was shown for the first time in November 2003 in Whitwell.

Awards

Literature
  • Helene Meyers: The Unmarked Chains of Paper Clips, in: Shofar, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Spring 2014), pp. 30–49 (Purdue University Press)
  • Lynne Fallwell, Robert G. Weiner: "Holocaust Documentaries" in The Routledge History of the Holocaust, ed. Jonathan C. Friedman, 2010, pp. 462 (Taylor & Francis)

References
  1. "Paper Clips". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
  2. "Paper Clips". Top Documentary Films. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
  3. Ebert, Roger (24 February 2005). "Paper Clips". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
  4. Scott, A.O. (24 November 2004). "Grasping Extraordinary Evil Through the Very Ordinary". New York Times. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
  5. ""Can You Feel the Souls?" - Washingtonian". 2003-10-01. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  6. "JUF News : "Paper Clips" first of five exclusive television premieres on Mondays in August". JUF News. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  7. "AJFF". ajff.org. Retrieved 2023-02-27.
  8. "Awards". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
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