https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cHeNDYkNQ0&ab_channel=mecfilm-FilmsbyArabdirectors

The Goethe Institute and Cinema Akil present two significant German films that make our mind, body, and
soul itch. What monsters of fear eat our souls? Is it the same monsters we see in German film director’s
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s iconic, ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL (1974)? The film reveals traumatic stories of migration,
class, racism, sexism, sexuality, and intergenerational love. 48 years ago, the film was seen as courageous - confronting certain taboos.
However, when we watch filmmaker Viola Shafik’s, MY NAME IS NOT ALI (2011), we are reminded
perhaps of the quote by the creative thinker, Walter Benjamin, who wrote: “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” Hidden from the celluloid of Fassbinder’s influential melodrama is also a real harrowing story of alienation still much present in our own worlds. Shafik’s incisive documentary asks the question: Is it possible for cinema to be more edifying than civilization? - Dr. Nezar Andary

His anti-racist film Ali, Fear Eats Soul (1973) gained German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder international acclaim. The protagonist, an Arab foreign worker, was played by Moroccan El Hedi Ben Salem M'barek Mohammed Mustafa, Fassbinder's lover at that time. While the film itself courageously deals with the racism of post-war German society, its makers reproduced the insensibility and invention of the Other, fantasizing their own 'Salem'. Collage-like, through interviews and archive material, My Name Is Not Ali uncovers the invention of El Hedi Ben Salem by the Fassbinder troupe, an image not revised by most of its members till today.

This screening is made possible with the support of the Goethe Institut. Q&A with Viola Shafik on NOV 12, 7PM via zoom Moderated by Dr. Nezar Andary