Ioana Uricaru’s screenplay Paperclip is based on historical events, especially Operation Paperclip, the US military’s program of recruiting German scientists at the end of World War II. This intelligence operation, which made it possible to establish the American space program, is named after the office supplies used to affix a new set of paperwork—and therefore a new identity—onto the scientists’ files. It also became the target of controversy decades later, as the scrubbed biographies of some of its beneficiaries came back to haunt them. This fictionalized version of the operation focuses on the moment when two representatives of the US military are confronted with the meaning of their mission. Paperclip uses authentic historical events as a substrate from which difficult questions can grow and develop, challenging viewers to look very closely at the raw reality of human behavior and its consequences.