Recipient of a 2025 JFI Completion Grant
Winner of the 2025 Envision Award for the film’s singular ability to envision a world free of prejudice and hate.
Why has the murder of Alex Odeh gone unsolved for so long when the suspects have been known since the beginning? This is the motivating question of this investigative documentary with a political twist. The mystery of who literally planted the bomb unfolds into a more complex set of questions at the heart of US-Israeli relations. A saved voicemail, a confrontational interview cut short, a FBI memo, a confidential informant . . . all are fragments or puzzle pieces, begging to be assembled, to answer not just who did it, but why the murder of Alex Odeh has gone unsolved for four decades.
Description provided by grantee.
Co-directors Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans are colleagues on the faculty at the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. Osder is the director of Let the Fire Burn, and Youmans is the author of Unlikely Audience: Al Jazeera's Struggle in America. They see the Odeh story as a unique opportunity to bring a fresh perspective to the relevance of the Middle East conflict to U.S. audiences. As co-directors of Jewish and Palestinian heritage, respectively, they bring diverse backgrounds to bear on the story of the Odeh assassination.