Italian Directors Plan Film on Genoa G8 Protest

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>To: portside <portside at yahoogroups.com>
>From: portsideMod <portsidemod at yahoo.com>
>Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 21:33:36 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: Italian Directors Plan Film on Genoa G8 Protest
>
>Italian Directors Plan Film on Genoa G8 Protest
>
>Sunday September 2, 2001
>
>VENICE, Italy (Reuters) - A group of 25 Italian
>directors said on Sunday they planned to release in
>October a controversial film about violent clashes that
>scarred a summit in Genoa six weeks ago, leaving one
>protester dead.
>
>The film, still being edited and as yet unnamed, will
>show the build-up to the meeting, as heads of state
>from the Group of Eight leading industrial nations
>gathered in the city, and more than a quarter of a
>million people prepared to take to the streets to
>protest against them.
>
>``This film will not just be about the violence, but
>about the whole nature of the anti-globalization
>movement in the build-up to the Genoa summit, and the
>experience of these people during the week they were in
>the city,'' Francesca Comincini, one of the directors,
>told a news conference at the Venice Film Festival.
>
>Three days of violent clashes between police and
>demonstrators saw one protester, 23-year-old Carlo
>Giuliani, shot dead by a policeman. More than 300
>people were arrested, while the city was left looking
>like a war zone of smashed-up buildings and burned-out
>cars.
>
>The directors, who worked closely with Vittorio
>Agnoletto, the head of the Genoa Social Forum protest
>organization, while shooting more than 260 hours of
>footage, said their film would reveal the deep-seated
>passion that the demonstrators brought to their cause.
>It would also show the tough police response.
>
>``They have filmed and will reveal the truth,'' said
>Agnoletto, a lawyer turned protester who is now the
>spokesman for an organization representing around 700
>other protest groups.
>
>The film, which will be released in two versions, a 60-
>minute documentary for television and a 120-minute
>feature for cinema, is likely to attract heated
>controversy.
>
>Senior police officials have already come under fire,
>and some have lost their jobs, for the way in which the
>security operation was carried out. The head of the
>police has admitted to parliament that some officers
>used excessive force.
>
>Several of the directors, speaking to a packed audience
>which included dozens of veterans of Genoa, said they
>had been shocked by the brutality of the events at
>Genoa and had footage which showed Italy's military
>police making unprovoked attacks on peaceful
>protesters.
>
>Police have already seized footage shot by news
>agencies of the violence, including photographs of the
>moments leading up to the shooting of Giuliani. The
>police officer who shot Giuliani, who said he feared
>for his own life as the protester prepared to throw a
>fire extinguisher at him, could face murder charges.
>
>Comincini, one of Italy's leading young female
>filmmakers, said making the piece had left her with no
>doubt where she stood in the debate between anti-
>globalization protesters and the power of G8 nations.
>
>``It's up to us to decide what side we are on, and I
>want to say that I am clearly on the side of that man
>(Giuliani),'' she said.
>
>
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