Friday Night Film Series | Westchester Community College | “Ali – Fear Eats the Soul”

Ali—Fear Eats the Soul
Germany 1974
94 min

Location: Davis Auditorium in The Gateway Center
Time: Performances begin at 7:30 pm sharp!
Doors open at 7:00
General Admission $10. Discounted subscriptions available at the door.
Parking Lot 1

The current hostility to Middle Eastern migrant workers in Germany is nothing new. Over forty years ago film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, pillar of the New German Cinema, unsettled audiences with a daring melodrama called Ali—Fear Eats the Soul (1974), the story of a young North African “guest-worker” in Munich who finds companionship, then love, with an over-sixty German widow. The film explores a triple set of prejudices, showing middle class hostility to Arab workers, racially mixed couples, and old age. One of Fassbinder’s most accessible and enjoyable films, Ali—Fear Eats the Soul is still a relevant and incredibly moving take on the age-old problems faced by strangers in a strange land…and the people who love them.

*Includes film notes, introductions to the films, and post-film discussions.