After touring film festivals and screenings around the world, two GW professors are bringing it back to the District to premiere their documentary at the DC/DOX documentary festival early next month.
“Who Killed Alex Odeh” is a documentary co-directed by School of Media & Public Affairs professors Jason Osder and William Youmans that explores a 1985 assassination in southern California, where a bombing killed Palestinian activist Alex Odeh. The film looks into the U.S. government’s investigation into the killing, how the Israel-Palestine conflict intersects with Odeh’s murder and why the case remained unsolved.
Osder, an associate professor of media and public affairs, said he had the idea for the documentary after he screened his film, “Let the Fire Burn,” in 2013 about a police confrontation with a radical group in Philadelphia in 1985. Youmans, who attended a screening of the film, told Osder that the subject matter reminded him of Alex Odeh’s murder from 1985, as they were both “political acts of terrorism,” and the pair set out to make the film.
As a Philadelphia native, Osder said he was influenced to make his documentary “Let the Fire Burn” partly because he grew up around the area of the incident and was familiar with the event, while Youmans grew up in the Arab American community and was familiar with Alex Odeh’s death. Osder said he had never heard about Odeh’s assasination before speaking with Youmans, and he believed that his story needed to be told.
“That struck me as very vital that here we are, both Americans, both at an institution like GW, yet we didn’t fully share the same mythology,” he said. “We grew up with different stories around the kitchen table, different items of conversation, politically, and that seemed very vital to me in terms of something to collaborate on.”
Osder said that over 10 years, starting in 2013, he worked with Youmans to research Alex Odeh’s murder, developed a relationship with Odeh’s widow and daughters and followed journalist David Sheen’s investigation into the assasination. Osder said the case remains “officially unsolved,” but in the documentary, he and Youmans showcase known facts and information they discovered through their research and coverage of Sheen’s findings.
After the duo completed the film earlier this year, Osder said they submitted “Who Killed Alex Odeh” to film festivals around the world and were chosen as one of the 100 films screened out of 1,600 submitted to the 2026 Sundance Festival, in the documentary competition. He said the film was awarded the Jury Prize for Journalistic Excellence at Sundance, and soon after, the film screened at the Berlin International Film Festival.
He said the film will continue to show around the world, including at festivals in Sao Paulo, Egypt and Newport Beach, California, where Odeh was murdered, and in D.C. at DC/DOX, a District documentary film festival from June 11-14.
Osder said because there is a “real political content” to the film, he believes D.C. is a place where audiences will be politically engaged and ask questions after the film, compared to other stops on the circuit. He said because he did much of the work for the documentary in and around D.C., he anticipates some personal friends and colleagues will be in attendance.
“I think there’s a lot of reasons to be excited about this festival, in particular,” he said.
Although he said the awards and festival selections are gratifying, Osder said he wants to “temper” his pride surrounding the film because of its sensitive subject matter. He said working closely with Odeh’s family throughout the filmmaking process to tell a story that had never been shared with the public was a “gratifying” experience.
“To do these festivals with the family and to that mixed feeling, that bittersweet feeling of celebrated accomplishment, but we’re also still talking about the untimely murder of a husband and father,” he said.
He said the most rewarding part of the process has been his collaborative partnership with his co-director, Youmans, and the relationship and trust he has built with Odeh’s family.
“There’s kind of an adage of cliche that what you do when you make documentaries is you go out and form authentic relationships with people that you wouldn’t normally have relationships with, and what the film is is a record of those relationships,” Osder said.
DC/DOX will be returning to the District for its fourth year for four days of film screenings, filmmaker Q&A sessions and special guests, including Billie Jean King and Sara Bareilles, taking place in venues across D.C. like the Eaton Cinema and the Regal Gallery Place. Sky Sitney, festival co-founder and director, said of the 113 films screened at DC/DOX, each of the films is different from the next in terms of topics, themes and stylistic approaches — some with a more investigative, interview-oriented approach, while others are experimental with the documentary form, a few featuring animation or puppets to tell stories.
Sitney said the festival continues to grow each year as the event heads into its fourth year. She said this year, the festival received just under 1,000 submissions with a screening committee “diligently” making their way through each film. Last year, the festival screened 59 feature films and 35 shorts.
Taking place in the District, Sitney said some filmmakers see the destination as a crucial way to connect with the world of politics, with the slate featuring some “heavy-hitting political films,” while others focus on music and the arts.
Sitney said programming includes masterclasses, workshops and panels for attendees and filmmakers to explore the changing field, as well as a pitch contest where filmmakers can pitch projects in front of an audience and jury, with a $50,000 prize for the winner and $10,000 for the four finalists. She said the weekend also features a program called “DC Frame,” which is meant to spotlight filmmakers from the D.C. area, including Osder and Youmans.
“The festival is kind of true to what it feels like to live in D.C., which is so much more than what might be perceived as from the outside, and yet we are an important home, and want to be an important home for filmmakers doing very serious work,” she said.
Sitney said having “Who Killed Alex Odeh” in this year’s slate of films and seeing Osder at DC/DOX is a “full-circle” moment for her, recalling a viewing of his previous film, “Let the Fire Burn,” at AFI Docs — a now-defunct DMV documentary film festival — and continuing to view his work in local documentary spaces.
“One of the things we want to do is both be a home for the field at large but also become a really fertile place for the filmmaking community that’s here in D.C. and celebrate that work and advance that work,” she said.
