Hellmuth Costard (1940-2000) was a German experimental filmmaker and theorist.
He studied Psychology in Hambourg, where he started making films
and was one of the founders of the important "Hamburger Filmmacher Cooperative"
(Helmut Herbst, Thomas Struck, Werner Nekes, Dore O., Klaus Wyborny, Heinz Emigholz).
In 1968, his 11-minutes-film "Besonders wertvoll" provoked a scandal at the Festival of Short Film in Oberhausen,
for showing an erected penis speaking against the just-promulgated law on cinema.
In "Fußball wie noch nie" (1970), the camera observes the English footballer George Best playing
during an entire match (Manchester-Coventry 2-0). We don't follow the entire match
but we see only the football-star: his actions, mouvements, static moments,
and almost his look at the off-screen space.
In 1978, Costard filmed "Der Kleine Godard an das Kuratorium Junger Deutscher Film" in Super-8,
maybe his best-known film. We see Godard proposing a new film, Hark Bohm and Rainer Werner Fassbinder
at work. The film is obviously an hommage to Godard, and a very interesting reflexive film.
From the 80s, Costard had more and more problem in financing his projects.
He worked also at a children's series, he illustrated a children-book
("Herberts Reise ins Land der Uhren"), and he was a caricaturist for the magazine "Konkret".
In 1979-80, he teached at the Deutschen Film- und Fernsehakademie in Berlin.
Link: Fußball wie noch nie (1.36Gb) NO dialogues
Fußball wie noch nie (Hellmuth Costard, 1970).avi [1.36 Gb]