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 archive 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.

Documentary

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)