Hellmuth Costard

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Hellmuth Costard (born November 1, 1940 in Holzhausen near Leipzig ; † June 12, 2000 in Oberhausen ) was a German film director.

Life

Costard studied psychology at the University of Hamburg. In the mid-1960s he began making his first short films as part of the Film and Television Working Group at the University of Hamburg (AKFF). In 1968, together with other Hamburg filmmakers such as Helmut Herbst , Thomas Struck , Werner Nekes , Dore O. , Klaus Wyborny and Heinz Emigholz, he founded the Hamburg Filmmacher Cooperative , which took American New Cinema as its model and competed against “the nonsense of the established film industry” .

In 1968 Costard caused a scandal at the short film days in Oberhausen: his film Particularly Valuable shows a penis , which reads the speech by CDU member of the Bundestag Hans Toussaint on the new film funding law. The festival management refused to show the film, although the selection committee - the u. a. the journalists Wolfram Schütte , Enno Patalas and Uwe Nettelbeck belonged to - had accepted. Nettelbeck had also published an article in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , which took Costard's side. Almost all German directors withdrew their contributions, the writer Peter Handke left the jury in protest, while the filmmaker Werner Herzog wanted to continue participating in the festival. Only after heated discussions and an intervention by the festival director Hilmar Hoffmann could the festival continue. In the meantime, the film study group at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum was particularly valuable , where it could still be shown, contrary to the ordered confiscation, because the then rector Kurt Biedenkopf, according to legend, denied access to the campus by the public prosecutor .

Costard subsequently became one of the most prominent representatives of German experimental film. One of his most famous productions is the film Football like never before , in which the camera observes the British player George Best for the entire length of a football game . In the Super8 production Der kleine Godard he worked with directing colleagues such as Jean-Luc Godard , Hark Bohm and Rainer Werner Fassbinder . At the beginning of the 1980s, however, it became increasingly difficult for Costard to get the necessary funding for his projects. Although he did not completely withdraw from film work, he increasingly devoted himself to other topics, above all the so-called sun-machine , a machine that was supposed to convert solar energy into usable energy.

Costard died in June 2000 of complications from cancer. His last production, the documentary film Vladimir Favorable - A Trojan Affair , he left unfinished. It was brought to a close by his long-time friend and cameraman Bernd Upnmoor and was broadcast for the first time posthumously in April 2004 on WDR . The rough cut version was shown on the initiative of his friends and companions as early as 2000 in the Hamburg Metropolis Cinema .

Filmography

Short films

  • Tom is Stupid (1965)
  • Open clip, close clip (1966)
  • After Action (1967)
  • Why did you kiss me awake? (1967)
  • Particularly valuable (1968)
  • The postcard (1969)
  • The Elephant Movie (1971)
  • An Afternoon With Uncle Robert (1975)

Feature films

  • The oppression of women can be seen primarily in the behavior of women themselves (1969)
  • And no one in Hollywood who understands that too many brains have been turned on (1970)
  • Football like never before (1970)
  • Partly by me - A folk piece (1972-74)
  • Little Godard to the Board of Trustees for Young German Film (1978)
  • Witzleben (1980/81)
  • Realtime (1981-83)
  • War for Time (1984/85)
  • Uprising of Things (1987-93)
  • The Miracle of Chile (1996)
  • Vladimir Favorable - A Trojan Affair (1994–2000, published posthumously)

Awards

literature

  • The critical mass (1998), directed by Christian Bau. (Via Hellmuth Costard and the Hamburger Filmmacher Cooperative)
  • Ann Harris: Taking Time Seriously. Technology, Politics and Filmmaking Practice in the Films of Hellmuth Costard. Doctoral Dissertation, Cinema Studies Department, New York University, January 1993

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Costard, Hellmuth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German film director
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Holzhausen near Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 2000
Place of death Oberhausen