
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.
Release Date: 11/7/2011
Runtime: 98 minutes
Languages: Arabic, German
Director: Viola Shafik
00Companies: Diogenes Film, Bärbel Mauch Film
Countries: Egypt, Germany

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)
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