"The Looming Tower," an unflinching look at the missteps leading to the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, seems an unlikely vehicle for a love letter. But Twin Cities native Ali Selim, a key writer and director for the 10-part Hulu series that begins streaming Wednesday, dedicated his work to the memory of his Egyptian-born father.
"When I would get picked up to go to the shoot, the Teamsters would say the ghost of my dad was hanging over the set," Selim, 57, said by phone last month from his new home in Portland, Ore.
The writer/director of "Sweet Land," one of the most critically acclaimed movies ever filmed in Minnesota, was familiar with the material long before he was recruited for the project. Selim had come across an excerpt of Lawrence Wright's book "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" in the New York Times and read it to his dad, former University of St. Thomas economics Prof. Mohamed Selim, who had lost his eyesight after retiring.
"It excited him to the point of breathlessness," Selim said. "I bought the book on tape, but he couldn't stand it because the New York actor on the audio book couldn't pronounce the Arabic names. By the time he passed away in 2015, I had read him the entire book cover to cover eight times."
Father and son appreciated Wright's insights into the frayed relationship between the West and the Middle East, presenting legitimate grievances from both camps.
That evenhanded perspective was important to Selim's longtime friend Dan Futterman, who asked him to work on the series. Futterman, a two-time Oscar nominee as screenwriter of "Capote" and "Foxcatcher," teamed with acclaimed documentarian Alex Gibney ("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room") to run the show. Selim ended up directing Episodes 4 and 5, with writing credits on the seventh and final installments.
"I wanted him on board, not only because he's a great writer, but because of his heritage," said Futterman, who appeared in a Selim-directed commercial for A1 Steak Sauce before establishing himself as a force behind the scenes. "His insight into Islam and being Arab-American in the United States was great for the actors."
Tahar Rahim plays the Lebanese-American FBI agent who almost prevented the World Trade Center attacks. He lauded Selim's work with the cast, which includes veterans Jeff Daniels and Peter Sarsgaard.
