My Name Is Not Ali

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.

Cast for My Name Is Not Ali...

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)
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)