\n\tSince his passing in 2003, Said\u2019s work has only become more essential as the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians rose to the fore in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks<\/a>. Said\u2019s life is chronicled in the new documentary \u201cEdward Said: Between Worlds.\u201d<\/a> Directed by Maiken Baird (\u201cGhislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich\u201d) and produced by Alex Gibney (\u201cMusk\u201d<\/a>), the film paints a loving portrait of Said as a Renaissance man \u2014 he was also a professional pianist who wrote four books on music \u2014 and tireless voice for Palestinian civil rights who was often met with contempt and mockery in debate halls and on the news. After playing the Toronto International Film Festival<\/a> and New York Film Festival<\/a>, the doc is currently seeking distribution.<\/p>\n \n\tNajla, an actress, playwright and activist in her own right, served as a consulting producer on the film, providing \u201ca treasure trove\u201d of archival footage, from home videos to photos, to aid the filmmaking team so they could \u201ccapture him as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tVariety spoke with Najla Said about her father and their fight for Palestinians.<\/p>\n \t\tWhy did the timing finally seem right for a documentary on your father?\t<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Maiken reached out just a few months after Oct. 7, 2023, we were really excited because it seemed like someone wanted to make a documentary that showed him as a whole person and wanted to use his words to tell the story. Because we were approached a few months after Oct. 7, it seemed like the timing was right to have these ideas reach a larger audience and not a niche crowd.<\/p>\n \t\tWhat made the timing right after Oct. 7?\t<\/p>\n \n\tWhat happened for many of us who are Arab American or Palestinian American is the time after Oct. 7 was difficult for us in a lot of ways. I felt overwhelmed because everything that was being discussed on the news and on podcasts was about this topic that my father had known so much about and done so much for. I started hearing people use his words and his arguments but had no idea where they came from. As more and more people are learning about the topic, I think it\u2019s important to understand that Palestinians have been talking about this and writing about it articulately for decades.<\/p>\n \t\tYou get a sense from watching \u201cEdward Said: Between Worlds\u201d that your father was the lone voice for the Palestinian people on various talk shows and panels. That\u2019s a heavy load to bear. What toll did it take on him?\t<\/p>\n \n\tGrowing up, you don\u2019t really understand when your father does something unique like that. You just think, oh, that\u2019s my dad. When I was about 12 or 13 the First Intifada started, he was really on television a lot and I began to understand and be really proud of him. What we all witnessed at the time was a lot of stress because it was dangerous. There were people threatening his life all the time, he had bodyguards around him, his office was firebombed and he would get really anxious because it felt like people were ganging up on him and he was the only person who was given voice to respond, so he had to carry it for everybody. You can see in the film that even his weight goes up and down, and TV presenters constantly condescend to him and say dehumanizing things to his face about Palestinians. At the end of his life, he decided not to do those TV interviews anymore because he didn\u2019t think it was worth it. It takes a toll.<\/p>\n \t\tHow aware were you all that he was under FBI surveillance?\t<\/p>\n \n\tI think he knew that. I used to talk to my best friend on the phone when I was in middle school and be like, \u201cThey\u2019re listening!\u201d I thought it was hilarious, but it was really terrifying when you think about it. I watched the movie \u201cMunich\u201d when I was older and realized I was probably in danger at certain points of my childhood that I didn\u2019t know about, and that was sort of horrifying.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tEdward Said with his children Wadie and Najla in Jerusalem. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJigsaw Productions<\/p>\n \t\tYour father says in the film, \u201cThe media has done a tremendous disserve to the cause of peace by misreporting the realities on the ground.\u201d It\u2019s part of an unaired portion of an ABC News interview where he\u2019s discussing media coverage of Palestinians. How do you feel the media is treating the current moment?\t<\/p>\n \n\tThere are more people who can do what he did now and speak out, but very often they like to bring on someone who\u2019s Jewish or Israeli who\u2019s on the left instead of an actual Palestinian. You\u2019re hearing more pro-Palestine voices in the media, but the actual coverage is unbelievably skewed and outrageous. During the Columbia University encampments two years ago, I had gone to the encampments and witnessed a bunch of people reading books, talking and eating, and then I went home and saw on the mainstream news a report where everything was absolutely skewed and a lie. It made me deeply upset.<\/p>\n \t\tI was on campus teaching at the Columbia Journalism School during that time and what I found was that the media conflated what was happening outside the campus gates \u2014 which involved mostly non-Columbia students and\/or outside agitators, since you needed school ID to enter campus \u2014 with what was happening inside the gates, which was mostly kids eating Dunkin\u2019 Donuts in a circle.\t<\/p>\n \n\tRight. It\u2019s very jarring to see what is happening with your own eyes and then see something completely different on the news. I was really angry, and I felt that had [my father] been alive, it would have been different. I don\u2019t know exactly what he would have done, but I just feel that. I could be holding on to the fact that the Columbia that my father worked at is not the one that exists now. During the time that my father got in trouble for throwing a stone, Columbia stood with him for academic freedom and they would never do that today. At the same time, his archive is in Columbia\u2019s Butler Library and it\u2019s one of the most visited places on campus. So, while they celebrate his legacy, they have also completely shat all over it, which is such an insult and so personally hurtful. The campus was our home and where we played as kids, so to have it be closed off and no longer be our home, and to have Gaza no longer be our home, felt very hostile and upsetting.<\/p>\n \t\tIs a part of you glad he\u2019s not around to see what\u2019s happening over there right now?\t<\/p>\n \n\tYes. My mother has said that he would be so upset, so angry, so devastated that it\u2019s better that he\u2019s not here. However, were he here, I would feel more secure, guided and safe in the whole experience of being Palestinian during this time.<\/p>\n \t\tI want to ask you about a graduate of the place where your father taught, Bari Weiss. She first made a name for herself trying to get Columbia University professors fired for criticizing Israel and speaking up about Palestinian human rights. Weiss is now running CBS News and is the right hand of David Ellison, who will also be controlling CNN soon.\t<\/p>\n \n\tYou just said Bari Weiss<\/a>\u2019s name and I got hot inside. It infuriates me to know that these people get rewarded for their absolute, complete and professed racism. To be a \u201cproud Zionist,\u201d as she calls herself, and be able to be in control of a major news organization is so maddening to me. This is someone who tried to get professors like my father fired \u2014 as an undergrad! Some 19-year-old person came in and decided that an entire area of scholarship is racist and horrible and should be canceled, so for her to get all this power is very, very upsetting. I won\u2019t even turn on the regular television anymore in case I see something from CBS News. I am really worried. I\u2019m not sure if the average American knows this about her, but she is someone who makes my blood boil.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tEdward Said outside Columbia University circa 1968.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMariam Said<\/p>\n \t\tHow did you feel about the TikTok sale? Trump essentially pressured the company to sell most of its U.S. operation to a joint venture that includes Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said,\u201cThe main reason for the forced sale of TikTok to a consortium of pro-Israel billionaires is a desire to prevent young Americans from using the platform to learn about and oppose the Israeli government\u2019s human rights abuses.\u201d\t<\/p>\n \n\tFor sure. Because of my Palestinian-ness, I\u2019ve been sucked into social media more than I otherwise would. I\u2019m not on TikTok but I\u2019ve seen plenty on TikTok over the last five years. With the younger generation, it almost feels like you\u2019ve been bullied your whole life and now people are finally standing up for you. But now the Ellisons are going to own it and that is exactly why they bought it. That\u2019s pretty terrifying because that has been the place where [the pro-Palestinian cause] has gotten the most movement in the past five years.<\/p>\n \t\tIt seemed as though pro-Palestinian sentiment picked up during the Black Lives Matter protests \u2014 that there was a sense of solidarity between those protesters and the pro-Palestinian movement.\t<\/p>\n \n\tAfter Oct. 7 I lost a lot of friends \u2014 some were people I\u2019ve known for my whole life, and I was like, I\u2019m not sure who you thought I was, but I\u2019ve always been Palestinian, so it seemed weird that they\u2019d just stop speaking to me. But my Black and non-white friends are the ones who have not only been there for me but also are the ones who get it. I think that has a lot to do with the Black Lives Matter movement and what antiracism is, which you can apply to Zionism. That solidarity has been the most uplifting part for me because I would have nothing without it.<\/p>\n \t\tYou called out Shakira in 2011 for speaking at an Israeli conference, so I\u2019m curious what your thoughts are on the whole Ed Sheeran-Macklemore dust-up over his saying \u201cFree Palestine!\u201d at a concert?\t<\/p>\n \n\tI am very impressed with Macklemore<\/a>, to be honest. He\u2019s been pro-Palestine for the last few years and it\u2019s not just words \u2014 he seems to really get it. I don\u2019t know how Ed Sheeran<\/a> would not have known [his stance] given all that Macklemore has done over the past three years, and the fact that he wrote a song called \u201cHind\u2019s Hall.\u201d I also think that because it was a conflation of so many things that are hot topics right now \u2014 billionaire oligarchs, free speech and Palestine \u2014 it all came together in this one, big thing where people could connect to it and there was a way in for everybody. Robert Kraft basically colluding with other stadium owners to keep someone out is a level of corruption that we often get upset with in this country, and it completely backfired. I never thought that if hip hop stood up for Palestine it would be a white dude from Seattle or wherever he\u2019s from, but I\u2019m glad that he did.<\/p>\n \t\tWhat are your thoughts on Mamdani? His father is a professor at Columbia University like your dad.\t<\/p>\n \n\tWe\u2019ve known their family for years, so I knew him as a little boy and my father knew him as a kid. I think he\u2019s doing a great job. People get mad at me about that when he does things that upset Palestinians, but my theory is that he\u2019s a Democratic politician working within the system, so I don\u2019t know what people expect. I don\u2019t expect him to be Che Guevara. I\u2019m giving him more space to not be perfect than maybe other Palestinians do, and I believe in him as a human being. I think he\u2019s a really good human being at heart. His mother Mira and father Mahmood are close family friends, and I do remember my father on the phone with Mira asking about Zohran when he was a little kid. He thought he was a cute little kid. He\u2019s always been very thoughtful and very charming.<\/p>\n \t\tThe only time Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s name is invoked in the documentary is the time he backed out of a debate with your father while accusing him of being a \u201cterrorist\u201d and \u201cantisemitic.\u201d\t<\/p>\n \n\tIt happened twice. It happened on a TV show where he didn\u2019t want to be in the same building as my dad, and then they were on a plane together and both seated in first class across the aisle from one another and Benjamin Netanyahu asked the stewardess to move him. My father then asked the stewardess why he moved, and the stewardess told my father, \u201cHe said you wanted to kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tEdward Said speaking with Palestinian children while filming BBC documentary \u201cIn Search of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharles Bruce<\/p>\n \t\t\u201cEdward Said: Between Worlds\u201d doesn\u2019t currently have a distributor, and we\u2019ve seen other pro-Palestinian films like \u201cNo Other Land\u201d and \u201cNAZA\u201d have to self-distribute. There seems to be plenty of public interest in this topic yet these films can\u2019t get distribution.\t<\/p>\n \n\tI am an actor by profession and have been in this world a long time, so I\u2019m not surprised by it, but I am upset by it. One of the only ways that we can reach a mass audience and tell affecting stories is through film. I am hopeful that this film will get distribution, and I think it has a good chance because it\u2019s a documentary that\u2019s all archival footage. There is stuff in it that people will want to censor, but I don\u2019t know if it will have the same level of outrage as \u201cNAZA\u201d or \u201cNo Other Land\u201d because it\u2019s not exactly about what\u2019s happening now \u2014 it\u2019s about this person\u2019s life \u2014 but I know it\u2019s been hard getting funding for it and getting people onboard.<\/p>\n \t\tYour father believed that a one-state solution with equal rights for all is the best way to go when it comes to Israelis and Palestinians.\t<\/p>\n \n\tPeople ask, \u201cDo you think he would still think that given what has happened in the last few years?\u201d I think that he would, as hard as it is. We\u2019re not going to find a way out of it by isolating Palestinians and Israelis from each other. That\u2019s just not going to happen. The only feasible solution is equal rights for all people, end of story, so I don\u2019t think he would have given up on that. He\u2019d see that it was much more difficult now, but I think he would still hang on to it.<\/p>\n \t\tWhat do you hope people walk away with after seeing \u201cEdward Said: Between Worlds?\u201d\t<\/p>\n \n\tI think people \u2014 and young people, especially \u2014 have done a great job of educating themselves on what happened in 1917, 1948 and all that, but I think \u2014 and my father says this \u2014 what is needed now is an acknowledgment that this happened to us. Through this film, you get to see the history of it. There are straightforward video clips of Israeli leaders stating their intentions very clearly; and you get to see, through my grandfather\u2019s Super 8 films, a Palestinian society that was lost and how we got here. Not to sound too much like my father\u2019s daughter, but there is something important in delving in deeper and understanding more in order to fight and move forward with this struggle. I\u2019m also happy for them to get to know my father as a person, because he was very funny and charming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019d always wanted something like this,\u201d asserts Najla Said. Najla is the daughter and eldest child of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,172868,447,61385,14661,489872,134,464273],"class_list":["post-922194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bari-weiss","tag-celebrities","tag-documentaries-to-watch","tag-ed-sheeran","tag-edward-said-between-worlds","tag-entertainment","tag-macklemore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Palestine\u201d in 1997.<\/p>\n