Virginia Film Festival

Special 20th Anniversary Screening

Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Joe Fab moderated by VAFF Advisory Board member Diane Naughton. 

Whitwell, TN is a tiny community of about two thousand people nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. Its citizens are almost exclusively white and Christian. In 1998, the children of Whitwell Middle School took on an inspiring project, launched out of their principal’s desire to help her students open their eyes to the diversity of the world beyond their insulated valley. What happened next would change the students, their teachers, their families and the entire town forever… and eventually open hearts and minds around the world.

Paper Clips is the moving story of how these students responded to lessons about the Holocaust—with a promise to honor every lost soul by collecting paper clips representing each individual exterminated by the Nazis. Despite the fact that they had previously been unfamiliar the Holocaust, their dedication was absolute. Their plan was simple but profound. The amazing result: a memorial railcar filled with 11 million paper clips which stands permanently in their schoolyard is an unforgettable lesson of how a committed group of children and educators can change the world, one classroom at a time.

Free-to-attend, with RSVP (space allowing). This screening is part of the VAFF at Violet Crown series.