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‘Paper & Glue’ Turns the Camera Back on Urban Visual Artist JR

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In Paper & Glue, JR turns the camera on his own work as he builds some of his most monumental projects.

From early illicit graffiti videos captured on Paris rooftops at night, to the US-Mexico border, to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, to the current collaboration at a California supermax prison, the film follows JR as he turns these communities inside out, turning images of residents into eye-catching and immersive art installations. Paper & Glue  follows the Oscar-nominated Faces Places, which was directed by JR along with Agnès Varda.

THOUGHTS ABOUT PAPER AND GLUE
JR: Paper & Glue is a film that challenges viewers’ perceptions by lifting the voices of people and places that are often overlooked. The film is the culmination of years of my work and includes an archive of photography and videos that span back to my adolescence. At the time of many of these recordings, I had no intention or awareness they could be used in this way. To have my work come full circle exemplifies the power of film, and the power of Paper& Glue. I hope this film further uplifts the essentiality of art and the potential it holds to reshape even our most ingrained beliefs. By challenging our expectations of people and places, I hope to change our greater perceptions of the world. Keiko Deguchi (Editor)I have always been fascinated by the artistic process, so working on this film was pure joy for me.JR has amassed avast archive of his work over the past twenty years, and what I especially enjoyed about watching the archive was seeing how his art affected his subjects, particularly marginalized people, and witnessing their pride and joy. It was infectious as I screened the raw material. My hope was to create a film that condenses those feelings and weaves them into a coherent feature-length film.
Due to Covid-19, we couldn’t do as much new shooting as we initially planned, so we relied heavily on the archive. Fortunately, the archive had many precious moments, such as when Rosiete from the favela in Brazil sees herself on the wall of a prestigious museum in Rio, or when the inmate in Tehachapi realizes that the important part of art is the process. JR is also a great storyteller, so we relied on his voice to create a sense of intimacy as if he is talking directly to you.
His art is spectacular without any of the backstories, and I wanted to make sure that the film does justice to his artwork as well.Building the reveal of the final pasting was just as important to me. I hope we were able to create a film that encapsulated JR’s inspirational art and the richness of the stories and emotions behind them.
A JR PROJECT: One of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2018, JR is a visual artist who exhibits freely in the streets of the world, pasting huge portraits of anonymous people in unexpected laces.
His work is about raising questions, seeking an encounter between the subject and the passer-by.
KEIKO DEGUCHI (Editor)
Keiko Deguch is an award winning film editor of more than 50 feature narrative films and documentary films combined. She is the nominee in the best editing category for 2019 Spirit Award for her work on We The Animals.
The other narrative films she has edited include Steven Shainberg’s Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of DianeArbus; Takeshi Fukunaga’s Ainu Mosir; Bette Gordon’s Handsome Harry: and Susan Seidelman’s The Hot Flashes.
Her documentary film credits include award-winning films such as Jeremiah Zagar’s In A Dream, Jason DaSilva’s When I Walk, Matt Wolf’s Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, and Ross Kauffman’s TIGERLAND.
She is a rare editor who is versed in both fiction films and documentary films and she brings her sense of narrative structure to documentary films and her creative use of footage to narrative films.
SARA BERNSTEIN (Producer)
Sara Bernstein is an award-winning producer and Co-President of Imagine Documentaries. Recent projects include Paper & Glue (MSNBC Films), Julia (Sony Pictures Classics), Gossip (Showtime), DADS (Apple TV+), Rebuilding Paradise (National Geographic Documentary Films), D. Wade: Life Unexpected (ESPN Films), On Pointe (Disney+), We Are the Brooklyn Saints (Netflix), Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel (Netflix), Supervillain: The Making of Tekashi 6ix9ine (Showtime), The Day Sports Stood Still (HBO), Who Are You, CharlieBrown? (Apple TV+).
Prior to joining Imagine, Bernstein was SVP, HBO Documentary Films overseeing award-winning nonfiction programming for the network including Emmy® winner The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, Academy Award® and Emmy® winner Citizenfour, Emmy® winner Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Academy Award.

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