My Name Is Not Ali
Travelling between Germany, France, and Tunisia, Viola Shafik reconstructs and deconstructs the unknown life story of El Hedi Ben Salem through interviews with his companions and family members as well as archival material. With openness and slight naivety, the interviewees explain how “Ali” became an oriental object of projection for the Fassbinder group, while El Hedi Ben Salem, the human being, was overlooked in order to establish the foreigner as “other.” A no-frills examination of a piece of German and Munich film history.
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Cast
El Hedi ben Salem
Self (archive footage)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Self (archive footage)
Abd El-Kader Jarrary
Self (Ben Salem's Son)
Hafsia Mellaim
Self (Ben Salem's former wife)
Viola Shafik
Self (voice)
Renate Leiffer
Self
Irm Hermann
Self
Karl Scheydt
Self
Rudolf Waldemar Brem
Self
Hans Hirschmüller
Self
Hamdan Jarrary
Self (Ben Salem's son)
Zeina Jarrary
Self (Ben Salem's sister)
Ahmed Lecomte
Self (Ben Salem's nephew)
Reqaya Zkoura
Self (Ben Salem's niece)
Chadhlia Zkoura
Self (Ben Salem's niece)
Najat Ghribi
Self (Ben Salem's daughter-in-law)
Kurt Raab
Self (archive footage)
Thea Eymèsz
Self
Nikolaus Notter
Self
Marie Notter
Self
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Overview
Travelling between Germany, France, and Tunisia, Viola Shafik reconstructs and deconstructs the unknown life story of El Hedi Ben Salem through interviews with his companions and family members as well as archival material. With openness and slight naivety, the interviewees explain how “Ali” became an oriental object of projection for the Fassbinder group, while El Hedi Ben Salem, the human being, was overlooked in order to establish the foreigner as “other.” A no-frills examination of a piece of German and Munich film history.