EDWARD SAID: BETWEEN WORLDS Documentary

Screening to be followed by a conversation with director and producer Maiken Baird and producer Sarah Mowaswes.

The legacy and indomitable voice of Palestinian activist and scholar Edward Said are revitalized in documentarian Maiken Baird’s sweeping profile, moving from his childhood in Jerusalem to his foundational academic texts including “Orientalism” and “The Question of Palestine,” as well as his lifelong advocacy for Palestinian freedom. Made in collaboration with Palestinian-American producers Sarah Mowaswes and Razan Ghalayini, and given access to the Said estate by his family, Baird pulls from the extensive library of archival material — both audio and visual — featuring never-before-seen home videos, public lectures, interviews and previous documentaries to assemble a dynamic portrait of Said’s life in his own words. Born in 1935 in Jerusalem, Palestine, Said’s childhood and home were swiftly displaced and his family, along with a generation of Palestinians, exiled with the formation of the state of Israel in 1948. Chronicling the coming–of age of the young Said to his growing prominence as a public figure in the Palestinian National Council and subsequent split from the leadership due to his criticism of the 1993 Oslo Accords, his personal and political lives keenly contextualize the decades-long historical struggle for a free Palestine. Baird, who compiles the archival montage with effortless fluidity, reveals vital insights into a critical thinker gone too soon, whose persevering fight for his people and resistance against the status quo echoes just as profoundly today. –Anna Li