The Round Number

The film is a historical and personal journey by David Fisher, the film's director and the son of Holocaust survivors, examining how the number "six million" became canonical in collective memory as the defining symbol of the Holocaust. In an attempt to trace the source of the number, Fisher raises questions regarding history, politics, and identity that echo the ongoing debate among historians: What is the origin of the number? When does the counting of victims begin and end? Who was the first victim and who was the last? What are the problems inherent in the counting process, and will an exact total ever be established? Fisher asks whether the number has become so deeply embedded in public consciousness as to be beyond scrutiny, becoming effectively “untouchable”, or whether the obligation to rigorously examine it is, in fact, the only way to truly protect it.

Throughout the film, Fisher interviews key historians in the field of Holocaust studies, including Yehuda Bauer, Dina Porat, Omer Bartov, and Hanna Yablonka, each presenting a different approach to the subject.^[2]

Similar to his previous films concerning the Holocaust, Love Inventory and Six Million and One, The Round Number is also intertwined with the director's family history. The Critic Shmulik Duvdevani argues that the film is effectively a continuation of the director's journey that began in Love Inventory, noting that Fisher is driven throughout the film by "the command of his late father."^[3]

The film was produced with the support of HOT8. The executive producer is Errol Morris, whom Fisher first met while teaching at Yale University.^[4] Fisher encountered difficulty securing production support from Israeli public funds and foreign sources due to their concerns about being accused of Antisemitism or trivializing the Holocaust, and he eventually contributed his own personal funding to the production.^[5] The film's soundtrack was designed by Avi Mizrahi.

The film premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival in August 2021.^[6][7]

In 2022, the film was screened at the Transilvania International Film Festival^[8] and at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI) as part of a retrospective held for Fisher's filmography. Following the screenings, several Argentine critics wrote about the film in the context of the people who disappeared during the military junta rule between 1976 and 1983, whose number is unknown to this day.^{[9][10][11][12]}

In 2023, the film was acquired for the art collection of Duke University.^[13][14]