| Here and Elsewhere | |
| Director: | Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Pierre Gorin Anne-Marie Miéville |
| Producer: | Jean-Luc Godard Anne-Marie Miéville Jean-Pierre Rassam |
| Narrator: | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Cinematography: | William Lubtchansky |
| Editing: | Anne-Marie Miéville |
| Distributor: | Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont |
| Runtime: | 53 min |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | French |
Here and Elsewhere (French: Ici et Ailleurs) is a 1976 documentary film by Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville. It is a film essay, narrated by Godard and Miéville, which began as a film entitled Jusqu'à la victoire, undertaken by the Dziga Vertov Group, the partnership of Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin who together made a number of political, pro-Marxist films between 1968 and 1972.
Here and Elsewhere incorporates footage of Palestinian fedayeen (resistance fighters) taken for Jusqu'à la victoire, which had been commissioned by The Arab League in Paris. Jusqu'à la victoire was abandoned after most of its subjects were killed, several months after filming, by Jordanian forces, backed by the US CIA and the UK government, as part of the 1970 Black September effort by Jordan to eliminate the fedayeen, who had been taken in after the 1967 war with Israel, due to their left-wing challenge to the monarchy and their call for democracy in Jordan.[1] Here and Elsewhere, using footage shot by the Dziga Vertov Group, as well as new footage shot after the abandonment of the first film, takes its name from the contrasting footage it shows of the fedayeen and of a French family at home.
The film shows footage of the Fedayeen training in military, educational, and cultural activities, including women and children ; Although the film has a few self-critiques - Miéville states in a voiceover that a woman filmed talking about committing her child to the revolutionary cause was in fact not pregnant at the time - primarily the film is a criticism of how capitalism's use of media distorts the aims of liberative and revolutionary causes, among other aspects of economic and social disparaties.[2]
Ici et Ailleurs marks the beginning of Godard's transitional period, which found him experimenting in very original ways with video, and political and representational polemics; as such, it shares many of the traits of both his radical-era films and the video-centered work that followed. It is also one of his first projects with Miéville, who remained the major collaborator in his life and work since that period.