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“We’d always wanted something like this,” asserts Najla Said.
Najla is the daughter and eldest child of the late scholar, intellectual and activist Edward Said, whose 1978 book “Orientalism” — examining the Western world’s
skewed perception of the East — is considered a canonical work in the area of post-colonial studies. Born in Palestine and educated in America, Said taught comparative literature at Columbia University from 1963 to 2003, served on the Palestinian National Council and was the most prominent advocate in the U.S. for Palestinian human rights, urging the world to recognize the Nakba.
Since his passing in 2003, Said’s work has only become more essential as 75,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed by Israeli attacks in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre. Said’s life is chronicled in the new documentary “Edward Said: Between Worlds.” Directed by Maiken Baird (“Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich”) and produced by Alex Gibney (“Musk”), the film paints a loving portrait of Said as a Renaissance man — he was also a professional pianist who wrote four books on music — 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 and New York Film Festival, the doc is currently seeking distribution.
Najla, an actress, playwright and activist in her own right, served as a consulting producer on the film, providing “a treasure trove” of archival footage, from home videos to photos, to aid the filmmaking team so they could “capture him as a whole.”
Variety spoke with Najla Said about her father and their fight for Palestinians.
Why did the timing finally seem right for a documentary on your father?
When 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.
What made the timing right after Oct. 7?
What 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’s important to understand that Palestinians have been talking about this and writing about it articulately for decades.
You get a sense from watching “Edward Said: Between Worlds” that your father was the lone voice for the Palestinian people on various talk shows and panels. That’s a heavy load to bear. What toll did it take on him?
Growing up, you don’t really understand when your father does something unique like that. You just think, oh, that’s 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’t think it was worth it. It takes a toll.
How aware were you all that he was under FBI surveillance?
I think he knew that. I used to talk to my best friend on the phone when I was in middle school and be like, “They’re listening!” I thought it was hilarious, but it was really terrifying when you think about it. I watched the movie “Munich” when I was older and realized I was probably in danger at certain points of my childhood that I didn’t know about, and that was sort of horrifying.
Your father says in the film, “The media has done a tremendous disserve to the cause of peace by misreporting the realities on the ground.” It’s part of an unaired portion of an ABC News interview where he’s discussing media coverage of Palestinians. How do you feel the media is treating the current moment?
There are more people who can do what he did now and speak out, but very often they like to bring on someone who’s Jewish or Israeli who’s on the left instead of an actual Palestinian. You’re 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.
I 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 — which involved mostly non-Columbia students and/or outside agitators, since you needed school ID to enter campus — with what was happening inside the gates, which was mostly kids eating Dunkin’ Donuts in a circle.
Right. It’s 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’t 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’s Butler Library and it’s 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.
Is a part of you glad he’s not around to see what’s happening over there right now?
Yes. My mother has said that he would be so upset, so angry, so devastated that it’s better that he’s not here. However, were he here, I would feel more secure, guided and safe in the whole experience of being Palestinian during this time.
I 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.
You just said Bari Weiss’s 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 “proud Zionist,” 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 — 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’t even turn on the regular television anymore in case I see something from CBS News. I am really worried. I’m not sure if the average American knows this about her, but she is someone who makes my blood boil.
How 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,“The 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’s human rights abuses.”
For sure. Because of my Palestinian-ness, I’ve been sucked into social media more than I otherwise would. I’m not on TikTok but I’ve seen plenty on TikTok over the last five years. With the younger generation, it almost feels like you’ve 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’s pretty terrifying because that has been the place where [the pro-Palestinian cause] has gotten the most movement in the past five years.
It seemed as though pro-Palestinian sentiment picked up during the Black Lives Matter protests — that there was a sense of solidarity between those protesters and the pro-Palestinian movement.
After Oct. 7 I lost a lot of friends — some were people I’ve known for my whole life, and I was like, I’m not sure who you thought I was, but I’ve always been Palestinian, so it seemed weird that they’d 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.
You called out Shakira in 2011 for speaking at an Israeli conference, so I’m curious what your thoughts are on the whole Ed Sheeran-Macklemore dust-up over his saying “Free Palestine!” at a concert?
I am very impressed with Macklemore, to be honest. He’s been pro-Palestine for the last few years and it’s not just words — he seems to really get it. I don’t know how Ed Sheeran 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 “Hind’s Hall.” I also think that because it was a conflation of so many things that are hot topics right now — billionaire oligarchs, free speech and Palestine — 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’s from, but I’m glad that he did.
What are your thoughts on Mamdani? His father is a professor at Columbia University like your dad.
We’ve known their family for years, so I knew him as a little boy and my father knew him as a kid. I think he’s doing a great job. People get mad at me about that when he does things that upset Palestinians, but my theory is that he’s a Democratic politician working within the system, so I don’t know what people expect. I don’t expect him to be Che Guevara. I’m 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’s 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’s always been very thoughtful and very charming.
The only time Benjamin Netanyahu’s name is invoked in the documentary is the time he backed out of a debate with your father while accusing him of being a “terrorist” and “antisemitic.”
It happened twice. It happened on a TV show where he didn’t 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, “He said you wanted to kill him.”
“Edward Said: Between Worlds” doesn’t currently have a distributor, and we’ve seen other pro-Palestinian films like “No Other Land” and “NAZA” have to self-distribute. There seems to be plenty of public interest in this topic yet these films can’t get distribution.
I am an actor by profession and have been in this world a long time, so I’m 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’s a documentary that’s all archival footage. There is stuff in it that people will want to censor, but I don’t know if it will have the same level of outrage as “NAZA” or “No Other Land” because it’s not exactly about what’s happening now — it’s about this person’s life — but I know it’s been hard getting funding for it and getting people onboard.
Your 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.
People ask, “Do you think he would still think that given what has happened in the last few years?” I think that he would, as hard as it is. We’re not going to find a way out of it by isolating Palestinians and Israelis from each other. That’s just not going to happen. The only feasible solution is equal rights for all people, end of story, so I don’t think he would have given up on that. He’d see that it was much more difficult now, but I think he would still hang on to it.
What do you hope people walk away with after seeing “Edward Said: Between Worlds?”
I think people — and young people, especially — have done a great job of educating themselves on what happened in 1917, 1948 and all that, but I think — and my father says this — 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’s Super 8 films, a Palestinian society that was lost and how we got here. Not to sound too much like my father’s daughter, but there is something important in delving in deeper and understanding more in order to fight and move forward with this struggle. I’m also happy for them to get to know my father as a person, because he was very funny and charming.
