How would you describe your personal inspiration in creating this film?
I grew up with the story. As a child, I went around with my aunt going door-to-door in the Detroit area to sign up members to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the same organization Alex Odeh worked for when he was killed. Alex became a target because of his activism with ADC and advocacy for the Palestinian cause. Though I never met him, his murder became part of my political socialization as an Arab-American in two ways. His name was both a rallying call for justice as the case went unsolved, as it is still. But also, some referred to him as a cautionary tale for being too outspoken on Palestinian rights. As I grew older, I thought about the injustice of his murder and its significance often, though I never researched it closely.
More than a decade ago, I attended a screening of 'Let the Fire Burn,' a documentary film project by a colleague, Jason Osder. It was an entirely archival film that focused on a tragic injustice he grew up thinking about. It also centered on an incidence of deadly violence, a firebombing, in 1985. As I watched, I kept thinking about Alex. During the Q&A afterwards, someone asked him what he was working on next. He said he was not sure, but that he was open to hearing any ideas. A little light bulb went off in my head. I took the invitation up and told him immediately about Alex Odeh. Jason never heard of him but became interested. Soon after, he came back to me and said he would only work on the film if I partnered with him. In a way, he roped me into it.
What was a particular challenge you encountered while making the film? What was a significant breakthrough?
We faced many challenges. The first was building a video archive of Alex. He was more of a community organizer than a spokesperson who sought the public eye. Furthermore, he was from a marginalized community that was under- or misrepresented in media, so we found very little footage of him in the traditional sources of archival news coverage. Though his murder was underreported, we had far more luck finding news about his death.
Our main breakthrough here was when I found out about Arab American TV (AATV), a weekly program in LA that Alex helped promote as a resource for the community. All the AATV tapes were kept in a storage locker in Los Angeles. During the Covid lockdown, the program's founder Wahid Boctor sent me the thousands of tapes to go through. I digitized them all, only to find about 5 minutes of Alex Odeh at meetings and events. However, AATV had extensive interviews with Alex's family after he was killed and vital coverage of events commemorating Alex.
The other challenge stemmed from the contemporary aspect of the film. We followed the family for years, but it took a long-time to gain their trust and comfort, and to learn how to work with a clearly traumatized widow and eldest daughter. There were at times efforts by ADC to call for justice, but they would start and tail off, giving us no real arc to show. That changed in 2019 when one of our subjects was approached by a reporter who wanted to investigate the case. We were out in touch. He let us follow his reporting for over 5 years of seeking information about the suspects.
Over time, the family became more comfortable with us and let us be with them during anniversaries of the murder as well as his birthday in April, which they continued to honor. Their trust was essential, and seeing them view the film at festivals has been so gratifying.
What audiences do you most hope will watch this film? What do you want viewers to take away after seeing this film?
We know the film will attract the usual audiences interested in Palestinian stories, but we want to reach viewers who might be interested in true crime, investigative journalism and political thrillers. This story could be an entry point for them to learn about the complexities of Israel-Palestine from Alex's viewpoint. If successful, we would show how violence against people who use their voice cannot really silence them. This is unfortunately all too urgent a goal today.
The documentary is not however "true crime," which can be sensational, apolitical and flatten victims. The film is both journalistic and in a sense academic. That is, it reports new information, but also presents Alex's murder in relationship to pervasive media and political bias in the US, and argues that it has corruped the workings of its criminal justice system.
It is difficult to know how audiences will interpret a film given that viewers bring their own biases and desires to a viewing. We hope that they see how resonate the murder of Alex is in the present day, a point the film makes explicitly. Alex Odeh's murder is not just a historical curiosity, but portended the dismal state of affairs in Israel-Palestine today and the US's destructive role in worsening it.
