Elliot Berlin | Producer and writer, 55

Elliot Berlin, 55, a producer, writer, and director of documentaries, including

Paper Clips

(2004), which explored how a Tennessee town learned tolerance and respect for others when its children studied the Holocaust, died last Monday of colon cancer at a hospice in Arlington County, Va.

For 20 years, Mr. Berlin was associated with the Johnson Group, a documentary-production company in McLean, Va. A senior producer, he was known as the company's resident expert in the varied processes of filmmaking, and he directed documentary productions in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Japan.

He was codirector with Joe Fab as well as coproducer, cameraman, and postproduction supervisor on Paper Clips.

The documentary was named one of the five best of 2004 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

"He had a really, really good eye," said Fab, who worked with Berlin on a number of projects in the last 12 years.

When the two men worked as codirectors, Berlin, an accomplished still photographer, usually focused on the images while Fab focused on the story.

They recently completed Bedford: The Town They Left Behind, a documentary recalling the impact of the D-Day invasion upon a small southwestern Virginia town that lost a number of its young men in the first minutes of fighting. - Washington Post