Ali: Fear Eats the Soul - Herzliya Cinematheque
Screening of the film “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” on Saturday, September 19, 2026, at 20:00 at the Herzliya Cinematheque. A German melodrama about love, racism, and exclusion.
Saturday | 19 September | 20:00 | Herzliya Cinematheque
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Cast: Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara Valentin, Irm Hermann
(93 min, German; Hebrew subtitles)
A razor-sharp melodrama about the impossible love between an older, working-class German widow and a Moroccan immigrant much younger than her. Their relationship provokes opposition, ridicule, and overt racism from those around them—family, neighbors, and colleagues—and exposes the mechanisms of exclusion operating beneath the surface of German society.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder draws inspiration from Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, but transposes the melodrama to postwar Germany, raising questions about guilt, identity, and ingrained racism. This is a raw, precise, and deeply moving film that combines formal excess with political and emotional complexity.
Winner of the International Federation of Film Critics Prize, Cannes Film Festival, 1974
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