Arab Attraction

For decades Barbara Wally was one of Austria’s most outspoken feminists. Some years prior to retiring as director of the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, she set out for Yemen where her life underwent a dramatic shift. She fell in love with Khadher, a Yemeni driver 20 years her junior, and became his second wife. And because Khadher insisted that she join his religion (because she would otherwise “end up in hell”), she became a Muslim. She exchanged atheism, radical feminist theory, and her beloved bacon for a headscarf, the humble status of second wife, and praying five times a day. Directors Andreas Horvath and Monika Muskala follow the untraditional couple’s lives in Salzburg and Yemen, capturing the most varied nuances of their multicultural conflicts, and clearly demonstrating that only life can come up with the craziest scripts. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)