Eckhart Schmidt(1938-2024)

Eckhart Schmidt was from Sternberg, Moravia [now Czech Republic]. He was a director, writer, producer, photographer and journalist. Eckhart Schmidt was a film critic at Süddeutsche Zeitung and belonged to a group of young German filmmakers called Neue Münchener Gruppe (NMG). Unlike other contemporary German film associations the NMG was more commercially focused and targeting the young audience. Schmidt's early works often explored the sexual tension and fantasies among young people on the make. In 1978 he created the punk magazine "Die Sau". A lot of cutting-edge musicians wrote for it, like David Byrne, Devo, and Patti Smith. Eckhart Schmidt's commercial breakthrough in the movies was "Der Fan" (1982), which tells the story of a girl obsessed with a pop star. In the mid-'90s he started making television documentaries. Over the course of his career, Schmidt directed 22 feature films and at least 79 documentaries and wrote 16 books.