Hellmuth Costard

The life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach as presented by his wife, Anna.

The drawings on which the series is based were created in 1969 and served as a template for a slide series in 1970. During its screening, this is interrupted by the film "Percy McPhee Agent of Horror (6th + 7th episode)".

In this film, we follow footballer George Best over a 90-minute match against Coventry City, which took place on 12th September 1970. There is no soundtrack and no interview overlaid, just Best doing what he did best - playing football.

ECHTZEIT by Hellmuth Costard and Jürgen Ebert is a film like thoughts. About reality and the digitalized world. A film about Ruth and Georg, who may no longer exist. A film about "imaginary cameras", synthetic landscapes, about (flight) simulators and Pershing II.

An attack on a piece of reactionary German legislation discriminating against young film directors. The film features a head-on, close-up shot of a penis ‘mouthing’ the parliamentary defense of the law by its author. A landmark in political pamphleteering, the film was selected for the 1968 Oberhausen International Short Film Festival by a committee of leading German critics and promptly banned by the city government, causing the withdrawal of almost all German directors from the festival and a national scandal. The title satirically refers to the official certificate of ‘Particularly Valuable’ given each year to the best film shorts by an Establishment selection.

Hollywood opening credits with crashing sea waves and expectant orchestral music opens the film. Then the viewer's gaze is carried through a room. In a mirror you see for a moment a naked girl holding the recording subjective camera under her arm, she pulls open a drawer, puts the camera inside and closes the drawer. The viewer's gaze and thus the viewer himself is caught in the darkness.