Dziga Vertov Group

The Dziga Vertov Group (French: Groupe Dziga Vertov) was formed in 1968 by politically active filmmakers including Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin. Their films are defined primarily for Brechtian forms, Marxist ideology, and a lack of personal authorship. The group, named after 1920s-'30s Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov (1896-1954), was dissolved soon after the completion of 1972's Letter to Jane.

They are generally credited with having made nine films:

• 1968 Un Film comme les autres (A Film Like the Others)
• 1969 British Sounds/See You At Mao
• 1969 Pravda
• 1969 Le Vent d'est (Wind from the East)
• 1969 Luttes en Italie (Struggles in Italy), originally Lotte in Italia
• 1970 Jusqu'à la victoire (Until Victory/Palestine Will Win)
• 1971 Vladimir et Rosa (Vladimir and Rosa)
• 1972 Tout va bien (Everything's Fine)
• 1972 Letter to Jane

Jusqu'à la victoire could not be completed after the film's subjects and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization were killed shortly after the initial footage was taken. Jean-Luc Godard later used the existing material in his 1974 film Ici et ailleurs (Here and elsewhere). In the film, Godard and his wife, Anne-Marie Miéville, deconstruct his and Gorin's methods for making Jusqu'à la victoire and they in turn call into question the methods and the manifesto of the Dziga Vertov Group as a whole.

References

• Jane de Almeida, Opening cans of Campbell's soup, Grupo Dziga Vertov (São Paulo: Witz edições, 2005).
• Writings on the Dziga Vertov Group.
• Films of Dziga Vertov Group on 0xDB
• Films of Dziga Vertov Group on Ubu.com