Screening the 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa: An Italian Cultural Trauma

The paper is based on some results of a research project started in 2012 on the attack of the Diaz school in Genoa by the Italian police during the 2001 G8 summit. The school building was the temporary headquarter of the Genoa Social Forum. On July 21, 2001, shortly before midnight, mobile divisions of the State Police attacked the buildings. The police indiscriminately attacked the building's occupants, resulting in the arrest of 93 protesters. During the raid the police violently attacked those who were in the school, injuring 82 people out of a total of 93 arrested. 63 arrested were taken to hospital and 19 were taken to the police station of Bolzaneto, where they were tortured. According to Amnesty International these events represent: "The most serious suspension of democratic rights in a Western country since the Second World War”. The raid resulted in the trial of 125 policemen.  However, none of the accused police officers were punished, due to delays in the investigation and incompleteness of Italian laws under which torture is not recognized. The design of the research includes 50 depth interviews to the victims, to the victims’ relatives, to the journalists, to Genoa citizens and to policemen of the State Police of Genoa. Moreover, it includes an analysis of all the cultural and media artifacts related to this case. In this paper the focus will be especially on the relation between cinema and the representation of this event in the national public discourse.

“Diaz. Don’t clean up this blood”, a 2012 Italian-French-Romania film directed by Daniele Vicari, focuses on the attack of the Diaz school and on what happened in Bolzaneto. It is based on the testimonies and reports from judicial processes. The paper analyses how the film reconstructs the event.