El Hedi ben Salem
Also Known As: Elhedi Ben Salem, El Hedi Ben Salem, Salem El Heïdi, Salem El Hedi
Biography: El Hedi ben Salem was a Moroccan actor. He is best known as the lover and collaborator of provocative German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He died while in prison. Fassbinder dedicated his last film, Querelle (1982), to Salem. In 2012, a documentary on Salem's life entitled My Name Is Not Ali, premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Morocco
Birthday: January 01, 1936
Deathday: January 01, 1976
Adult: No
Gender: Male
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Known For:
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Overview: Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1974-03-05
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Tenderness of the Wolves
Overview: A German serial killer preys on boys and young men during the so-called years of crisis between the wars. Based on the true story of Fritz Haarmann, aka the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover.
Genres: Horror Crime Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1973-07-12
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The Merchant of Four Seasons
Overview: Hans is a street fruit peddler and born-loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1972-03-10
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Fox and His Friends
Overview: Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. While he wants to climb up the social ladder, it isn't without turmoil, and being torn between his old working class roots, and the shiny new facade of middle class consciousness.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1975-06-06
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Martha
Overview: After the death of her abusive father, lonely librarian Martha finds herself caught up in a strange, sadomasochistic relationship with a monstrous husband whom she begins to suspect may be trying to murder her.
Genres: TV Movie Drama Thriller
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1974-05-28
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When Fear Eats the Soul
Overview: Mixing scenes of Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows and Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, François Ozon creates a new film about cinephilic contamination.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2007-02-01
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My Name Is Not Ali
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: de
Release Date: 2011-11-07
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Like a Bird on a Wire
Overview: A pseudo variety show about the Aufbau-Era, the time of the German 'economic miracle'. Brigitte Mira recounts her four husbands through song and joke, on an series of artificial sets.
Genres: Music TV Movie
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1975-05-05
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Jail Bait
Overview: Based on Franz Xaver Kroetz's play, which is in turn based on a true story, this film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder tells the story of a very young girl who, after persuading a local boy to become her lover, induces the anger of her father, whose incestuous sexual attentions to her have grown unbearable.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1973-01-09
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