Synopsis
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.
Ratings
IMDb6.6/10
6 audience votes
Key crew
- Viola ShafikDirector
- Viola ShafikWriter
Cast
- El Hedi ben SalemSelf (archive footage)
- Rainer Werner FassbinderSelf (archive footage)
- Abd El-Kader JarrarySelf (Ben Salem's Son)
- Hafsia MellaimSelf (Ben Salem's former wife)
- Viola ShafikSelf (voice)
- Renate LeifferSelf
- Irm HermannSelf
- Karl ScheydtSelf
- Rudolf Waldemar BremSelf
- Hans HirschmüllerSelf
- Hamdan JarrarySelf (Ben Salem's son)
- Zeina JarrarySelf (Ben Salem's sister)
Themes
woman director