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.

Director: Viola Shafik

Cast: El Hedi ben Salem, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Abd El-Kader Jarrary, Hafsia Mellaim, Viola Shafik, Renate Leiffer, Irm Hermann, Karl Scheydt

Audience-only score — full critic data not yet in the ReelXO vault.