Of Special Merit
MovieTitle | Besonders wertvoll |
User score | 3.6 |
Release date | Feb 17, 1968 |
Genre | |
Director | Hellmuth Costard |
Production country | Germany |
Run time | 11 min. |
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.