Boston Palestine Film Festival

Synopsis

Twenty-three years after his death, renowned Palestinian-American scholar, musician, and intellectual Edward Said recounts the untold history of Palestine through sweeping archival footage and recordings. The first documentary made with full access to the Said family and estate, it traces his political awakening, personal struggles, and lifelong reckoning with being forced out of his homeland. Featuring never-before-seen family archives, home movies, rare television appearances, lectures, and materials from Columbia University, the film spans seven decades, from his childhood in Jerusalem to his death in New York City, asking who has the right to tell their own story.

Summary

“I have the strongest belief that the historical and moral sufficiency of the Palestinian cause will finally outlast and outstrip any attempts to misrepresent it.”
-Edward Said, The Question of Palestine

In this thought-provoking, entertaining portrait film that tells the extraordinary story of the renowned Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said’s life and work, Said’s own voice is used to guide the film. Foregrounding Edward’s natural charisma and his unparalleled ability to communicate to a Western audience, the film’s capacity to narrate complex political and social ideas is both compelling and accessible.

The all-archival film draws upon hundreds of hours of audio and audio-visual documentation – including lectures, TV appearances, films, documentaries, interviews, and debates – to craft Edward’s narration, which weaves together his bold intellectual ideas and his personal story. Key sources include Edward’s 1986 conversation with Salman Rushdie and his last extensive interview recorded in 2002, a year before his death. Complementing the narration are verité scenes culled from his numerous BBC documentary collaborations.

Exile, a central theme of Edward’s life, is brought to life onscreen through a vast collection of never-before-seen 8mm home movies shot by Edward’s father. This unprecedented visual record of Edward’s childhood captures a life in Palestine before the nakba — when 75% of Palestinians were forced out of their homes in 1948 as part of Israel’s establishment — followed by, the family’s diasporic life in Egypt and Lebanon, as well as Edward’s earliest years as a high school student in America.

Music plays a central role in Edward’s life and in the film’s storytelling. His lifelong passion for Western classical music was fostered by his mother. He became a classically trained pianist, a music critic for The Nation, and co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra shortly before his death.

The film’s exploration of Said’s life against the backdrop of the often untold history of Palestine combines to create a kinetic assemblage of place, belonging, and identity, and asks audiences to question how we get to the truth, when those in power attempt to control who has the right to tell their own story.

Gallery