Original subtitles

This story shows that as easily as one's rights can be given, they can be taken away.

You are never truly safe within your freedom,

and there is always the threat that one day someone will come along and take it away from you.

Just like the case with the right to abortion or with civil rights,

there's constant threat,

so I think there is always a reason to go to a square and protest.

To me, it makes sense to think that the world can be changed.

You can try, and maybe you succeed, maybe you don't, but one step at a time, slowly, slowly,

the dream is realized.

Listening to what you said, that the police in grey uniforms,

had rifles and also batons...

It's the same uniform which my father wore when he came to pick me up from school as a child.

So, it was extremely shocking, let's say.

I don't know if a protest is the way in which to change the world or not.

But I do believe that it is valuable for us. Because it helps us to feel useful,

to feel alive, also to have our own small space.

We took to the streets for various issues that are close to our hearts.

There were those who did it for the environment, for immigration, for economic imbalance,

for the fact that there is ever more inequality, which is a serious problem.

At the time we were all convinced that it made sense to get organized and speak out,

because that was how we would change the world.

Dreamers maybe don't ask themselves the question,

of what they can think one can change and what one can't change. Because maybe we don't know that.

Maybe it's up to us where we put the limit,

perhaps a limit that we set ourselves in our minds, in our awareness,

and it's not given that this limit truly exists. So, the true dreamer asks the question of

where we put the limit, of what we hold as possible or not.

Because for everything that we determine as impossible,

we will never seek out.

In reality, we are doing something much deeper.

We are challenging the whole infrastructure of this economic system.

The only force that can succeed in carrying out the fight is organized people.

Individuals are not important, but it's essential that people get organized.

in Melbourne, Washington, Prague, Buenos Aires.

All over people have been fighting for years.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has declared that whoever opposes the G8 summit

is not fighting eight leaders democratically elected in their countries,

but they are fighting the West and its entire philosophy, free enterprise, and the free market.

To the National Committee for Order and Security of Italy,

to the Italian Ministry of Defence, chief of staff,

to the Italian Government, Prime Minister, President of the Republic,

to the chief of staff of the United States Armed Forces and the American ambassador in Rome.

Declaration of war on the powers of injustice and misery.

The G8 is a forum that does not have coercive power.

It is a forum that is pushed forward only by good will,

so much so that its function is the well being of everyone.

G8 means the city in revolution.

And one big deal.

I'm going on holiday. Have a good time. Bye.

Thanks!

The divers monitor the stretch of water in front of the port.

Small chance of finding any underwater protesters.

In alleyways barriers are put up, manholes are sealed, and underpasses closed.

Some "Garibaldinis" from the south chose to follow the path of Garibaldi in reverse,

leaving from Naples and arriving in Genoa.

I believe that going beyond the imagery and ideals, parallel to the current discourse,

what is marching here are some deep truths.

I had forgotten these images.

We brought the camera with us, because we thought it would have been nice

to look back at this together and show them to someone.

But after returning from Genoa, we no longer wanted to.

And none of us had seen them again until now, 20 years later.

It's the summer of 2001, I was 20, and on this train,

we were on a path that cut through the whole world...

I had never seen anything like it.

It had just happened. The meetings in preparation, discussions, the anger, but above all enthusiasm.

And then organizing and filling these trains and buses, one by one, with in tens of thousands of people.

Those who were older said that it had been at least 30 years since they'd seen such a huge movement.

Let's head to the platform, the train is arriving.

Make sure to stay together so that as soon as the train arrives,

we get on the fourth carriage.

Don't go wandering off otherwise we'll lose each other on the train.

If I have to explain:

we're at Milan station.

We're waiting for the 5PM train that's headed to Genoa.

It's about… I don't know… About three…

Four o'clock.

I feel like a bit of an idiot.

This is me.

I still feel like a bit of an idiot,

but I'm facing those small round spectacles because I want to tell you about that hope, that dream.

It was the first time I went to Genoa.

I expected a city by the sea,

but the first thing I saw were overpasses and roadblocks.

I'm relatively new to this kind of protest.

I enjoy taking part, seeing the atmosphere, experiencing it from within,

because it's the only way of getting a good idea of how it works, of the movement, of everything.

My first sensation was amazing.

We're going to Genoa to make some noise,

make a lot of noise, but peacefully, obviously.

We're going to protest.

I'm Silvia. I come from Mexico and

we're going to Genoa.

In my opinion it isn't right that only 8 countries should decide the fate of the world.

I'm a bit worried about the police, being trained as it is.

It's worrying. No one knows what's going to happen, but we'll go and find out.

It is positive that the population manages to reach an awareness

regarding what is happening

and hopefully we can contribute in ending these type of political forums,

hopefully reaching a phase in which the majorities can decide the fate of each country.

We were just saying that we're really pleased and excited.

Let's hope we'll come back with the same enthusiasm, right, Lisa?

You feel the spirit...

Big smile...I'm very happy.

But maybe this isn't the beginning of our story.

We are at…

I don't know. We could be in Brescia.

Looking back at these images,

I realize that I have never been able to fully recount this story to anyone. Not even myself.

Of course, I have tried.

But over the years, I gave up.

Maybe I thought I didn't need to anymore.

I wanted to be able to put this story aside and leave it there.

Maybe I didn't feel I had the right to tell it.

I don't know why.

But I know I'm not the only one.

To figure out how to start, this summer I went back to Genoa.

I had never been back since 2001.

And I wanted to go back wearing the same t-shirt I wore back then.

The white one that had “You the G8, we the 6 million” written on it,

and loads of little figures all interlaced,

that look like they're dancing.

It's a t-shirt that I have carried always with me, summer after summer.

It's faded and has more than one hole.

At times it felt ridiculous,

but I continued to wear that t-shirt.

When it was time to catch the train again,

I went to get it from the drawer where it had always been,

but instead, I don't know... Who knows where it ended up? I could not find it.

I'm here back to Genoa, to try to find some way of understanding where the untold story started,

but by myself I can't seem to find it.

I met up with Evandro.

We didn't know each other, then, but he was at Genoa with me,

at times only a few dozen metres away.

Those days in July 2001,

the sea was truly insignificant.

It was almost like there was no sea in Genoa

because the events, the atmosphere,

what was happening in Genoa was so intense, that it was sucking the city in.

I have never told my brother what happened.

I've mentioned a few things,

but I've never told him

about Genoa in 2001 and what happened to me.

I've never wanted to try to tell him,

and he has never tried to find out.

And it's something that no one has a clear explanation for.

And while I talk about this,

I'm looking at these streets in Genoa,

this area which is exactly where I was caught at G8,

and behind is Via San Pietro della Foce

where we were stopped, arrested, and loaded into police vans.

Here in front is the area where the concentration of police were.

Where were taken to later become, I dont know...

Victims, criminals...citizens to treat as public enemies.

And here, in this moment, it's as if all of this were mixing,

becoming some sort of broken kaleidoscope, from inside which I'm watching,

and it continues to spin but never produces a harmonious image of the coloured fragments,

aligned such that you can be satisfied with what you're seeing.

It is always a broken image, fractured, that can never be put back together.

This is my Genoa.

There was incredible joy here at the beginning of everything,

so much free energy.

Now rewatching, I realize I had completely forgotten

Of this faith we had in being able to move freely,

of all these coloured fragments that danced together, like a loud dream.

Maybe I don't really remember Genoa.

There was something else we couldn't say, we couldn't fully understand.

There's another Genoa beyond this one.

What do the things we don't say do to us?

Telling this story is more difficult than expected.

This is happening now. It has never happened before, and it will never happen again,

in the sense that I have never had a way of telling this story openly, without a time,

an understanding, without being an answer to a question,

without restraints or limits of any kind.

And so, it's like experiencing something that you know will never happen again,

in the sense that I can't imagine finding myself in a similar situation ever again,

being able to recount, following a single narrative thread,

while those who wait and listen give me all the time I need.

We left in that way: a bit uncertain. We weren't a group of hardcore activists.

We were very knowledgeable, yes, we had our own reasons,

though it was somewhat improvised,

but with this drive to be there, to want to go to Genoa and,

at least this time that this development would occur near our home,

we couldn't not be there.

It was like being able to think of something beautiful,

something beautiful or great for everyone.

This is a very idealized image, certainly...

Some might consider it childish,

or certainly naive, given what happened later.

But we believed in this naivety strongly,

we wanted to keep it that way.

Because, those who are not naive; What do you have to say for yourself?

What do you propose?

What is your future, you Mr. "Not Credulous"?

Let me begin this day.

Where are we headed?

There are storages

Let's leave the storages alone.

I'd like to watch the march they're going on.

You mean these here?

I don't know. Maybe, we leave with them, then maybe head there.

Both these go to Piazza Dante.

They do this part here kind of winging it...

Now we'll see.

Shame about the affinity groups but they have to pass by

that square but we make the rounds wide

Peaceful protests, non-violent,

civil disobedience with respect to the city of Genoa and all its people.

Thank you.

I feel like this is the position of the network and I feel it's a good one...

We had studied, argued, dreamt, and it was the moment to have our say, together.

We were sure that it mattered and that we would make a difference.

Yes, we thought it was important.

We also thought that it would have been beautiful and joyous, full of ideas and meetings.

We thought, that for once, people could take control of their own fate.

It seemed that anything could happen, to whoever, in any moment.

It was carnival of all kinds of people. There were infinite possibilities,

We were all there trying to find the right place.

At times, one was able to choose the right place.

Sometimes, the right place, found you.

We reached the top of a street,

in an area that had a sort of small square, a slightly larger area, basically.

Not knowing exactly what was happening,

we saw arriving,

from the opposite side to which we were arriving,

a group of people dressed in black.

There weren't loads of them, but a few dozen.

You couldn't see where they came from, or what had come before them,

what had happened before we got there.

This group of young people,

heading back up the same street that we were walking down,

intented on destroying, breaking,

ripping up, on setting everything on fire in a rather organized way,

They were not speaking to each other,

as if they knew what they had to do without needing to say a thing.

Even during the moments in which they had to work together to set car on fire, for example.

To have arrived in that moment and immediately witnessed this scene bursted our bubble,

where we were and what type of thing we were actually entering or had already entered.

Because by the time we realized what we were actually entering,

we had already been plunged into this scenario.

Because it was like that; a situation you would fall into.

After this moment, we regrouped for a moment. For a second.

To try to have a conversation and order our thoughts

At that moment we wanted to try to join the manifestation of the "Tute Bianche".

There were a lot of people really,

there were tens of thousands of people just in that stretch,

and you couldn't see anything-

We arrived from a bridge that crossed the railway

and then entered the demonstration, inside the procession.

So you could vaguely see its head but could not see its tail.

And the street was full, overflowing with people.

There was this resonating tension.

The protest had already been happening for a while, it hadn't just started.

So it seemed as if some things had already happened that we didn't know, that we were clueless about.

It seemed as though, as we were arriving,

half-naked, with our caps and all our good intentions,

but also a certain naivety. The people around were experiencing something else.

And slowly, we began to experience this something else ourselves.

My friends and I had decided, almost by chance, to leave Piazza Dante,

which was full of people, a great vibe, a parade.

There were other marches, at the same moment, In the same city, with the same hopes. were things went in a different way,

Where things went in a different way,

like in Piazza Manin, or like Via Tolemaide,

which is where Evandro was, whereas I was here.

Being in one square, it is hard to know what is happening in others at the very same time.

You don't understand much, but you begin to realize that there are not only right places, but also wrong places to be.

And it's enough to be in bad place at the wrong time for the story to turn out very differently.

It doesn't take a lot. Just a moment.

But how could there be wrong places to be? What happened?

All the months, the days, and even the hours that followed the beginning

of Thursday 19th July... of Genoa… Basically, of that event.

There were meetings between the movement,

intermediary interlocutors like us, representatives of the institutions but close to the movement,

and figures tied to the government, the Ministry of the Interior and surrounding offices.

Everyone knowing that in Genoa there would not be neither a taking over of the Winter Palace

nor a protest repressed by the Tsar. With some exponents of the movement,

the night before we went to see the stretch of the route.

In the place where a possible confrontation could potentially take place,

we saw imposing barriers raised. Very resistant.

And we meet some government officials with whom we talked.

Some of these told us "all agreements have been dismissed, the political management of the event has changed,

we can no longer guarantee anything."

And I see the fear in the eyes of the people who had to manage public order,

as if they had been marginalized, supplanted by another force.

And while we were still trying to understand where we had ended up, what situation we were in,

we found ourselves facing people fleeing quickly in the opposite direction,

and we found ourselves practically facing a load of police trucks,

Jeeps coming up Via Tolemaide, having dispersed the march and travelling at fifty, sixty an hour.

Along Via Tolemaide there's a portico,

and under this there is a fair number of people on the floor or resting against the walls, sitting on the floor.

Many of these are covered in blood and there's blood on the floor.

Some had passed out, they weren't conscious.

It was impossible to tell if they were alive or dead, what condition they were in.

This is what the scene looked like.

We walked this route of Via Tolemaide along the portico.

I don't know why. I don't know what we were doing.

We probably didn't realize that we were all in a state of shock,

and what we were doing was not directed towards any objective.

Without any purpose.

We were there hanging around in that situation, not knowing if we should try to be useful,

try to help someone, do something, aid someone, or if we should just leave.

It was a moment in which we were unable to think.

It was as if everything had evaporated, as there was almost no one left on the street.

The police were no longer there.

The only people left were those who were injured, some seriously injured.

Everything had evaporated and all that was left were the traces of what had happened,

and these traces were blood on floor, blood on the road.

As time gradually passed, news arrived of Carlo Giuliani.

But, at the time, he was not Carlo Giuliani. He was a young man. I don't remember well.

But first he was a Spanish boy,

then maybe a Brazilian.

The news became more and more specific about Carlo Giuliani,

including the way in which he died, that a policeman had shot him. The news corroborated the scenario we were living.

We were active with our passions, our joys, our sadness,

we lived that day as a crazy day, truly crazy,

With the problem of not-

Without being able to understand,

And without being able to say that we were desperate,

that we had seen such outrageous things,

that we had experienced such outrageous things, outrageous and intolerable.

Unbearable.

Without being able to cover our face and just talk about it, share it, be able to feel it.

It was as if we had collected all this ugliness and curses,

absorbed it all, feeling it inside us so compacted, like a pain to contain,

that you didn't know how to understand, didn't know what to do.

Maybe the biggest problem was not being able to understand,

not being able to understand what was happening,

not being able to recognize it for what it was.

As if it could be a part of some sort of bullshit normality,

but in that place, there was nothing normal. Everything was truly insane.

We didn't… I don't know how, that is, I know, I know how,

it's very clear to me, none of us said a word about what…

about the effect of living that experience up to that moment

Not one of us was able to say a thing.

It was clear that there was disorientation and the main question was: “what will we do tomorrow?

Shall we go? Should we not go?”

It was a valid question because the situation was ugly,

while being a situation that preserved, at least ideally,

the urge to be there and to not to give up,

to be scared about running away or to not feel like running away.

God damn it, I'm not going home!

I am here and I'm staying here.

I am suffering like an animal, but I'm staying and I'm not leaving.

One of the group, always my friend,

suggested we make a banner,

and on this banner we wrote: “Now kill us all.”

We didn't speak much that evening either.

All the information was confusing. We couldn't understand what was happening.

We couldn't believe it more than anything.

We wanted to still believe that the next day everything would be okay.

We refused to understand how many things were ending for us that night

We've crossed this city that is a deserted city, comrades, a city that they have emptied.

There was not a single person from Genoa. They left us on our own.

This is a situation like that of Chile, comrades.

We must tell the truth this evening because otherwise we won't understand what's happening.

It's not normal in this country, and not only this country, that there should be shooting in the squares.

It's not normal for us to consider having a martyr among us.

A martyr? Is this a joke? This evening I am living, on a personal level,

as I imagine the major part of us are, a nightmare,

and the fact that we aren't able to talk is another indication of this nightmare,

that something huge has happened.

We want to know, yes or no, if tomorrow we aren't in the square with the greatest conscientiousness,

what they did to us today they will also do tomorrow.

This is the issue. No one wanted blood. Who wanted blood?

They wanted blood, scientifically, with bombs, with missiles, with terror, with crimes, with everything.

It's clear that they wanted this. But if this is clear, we can't stay in this square like this.

There is something fundamentally wrong.

We have to wake up. We have to wake up this evening back at camp,

tomorrow morning, to wake up here again, to wake this country, wake ourselves.

We have to wake up! I ask you… I don't know.

I am a comrade like you. I don't know, if I'm a comrade or an idiot.

I don't know who I am this evening. I genuinely don't know.

In the morning we head towards the event, clearly attempting to find some sort of mood

that would allow us to be a little more relaxed,

able to smile again, with a few jokes, and it didn't really work out.

Walking along the street where the protest was taking place,

the side streets were lined up with armoured vehicles,

barred by police platoons with shields, wearing gas masks,

It was one in the afternoon, it must have been thirty-five degrees.

Clearly, the roads were blocked

but to protect what? I don't know…

To stop someone from escaping?

Maybe no one was meant to escape or maybe it was so they could intervene quickly...

It wasn't clear. That is, the implicit signals of this sight, for me it was all adverse.

I had a phone call with my mother shortly before. There was instance where ...

my mother knew I was in Genoa.

It was a time in which my father was very sick: he had a tumour and so ...

he only had a few months left to live, and so there was a particular situation in my house.

I tell my mother: "No, don't worry, because we are at the centre of the march,

if things happen, they happen either in front or behind,"

and I told her: "Look, here I am in like a stronghold."

Can you give me a picture of the situation?

No, everything is fine. We are creating a chain of security,

everything is quiet, and I am shitting myself.

We are flawlessly organized. It was a wonderful day.

I woke up in a comfortable bed this morning, which was on fire, but it doesn't matter.

I've been walking for four hours, haven't eaten, haven't slept and now I will sing.

[protesters sing "Bella Ciao"]

In our backpacks we even had swimsuits.

It was July, it was hot. Maybe a quick dip.

But in Genoa during those days the sea had disappeared.

They are setting the banks on fire there, as usual.

Our backpacks!

My backpack is right there.

Oh god! Look at this mess.

Right where we just passed by! Ok, let's move on.

You could hear the shots being fired and a shower of tear gas rains down on us, inside the procession

There is a scene of panic, a general stampede in which it is not clear what to do, which way to escape.

You could run forward but there was smoke, tear gas,

it was not clear what it meant to run forward. What's going on in front? Is that a part of the protest?

Or is there a police platoon? It was not clear.

The group we were part of dispersed.

Because, obviously, everyone was trying to find their own way out.

The only thing I was really trying to-

The only thing I was really trying to look after was my girlfriend,

my partner, who at the time was Laura, and who was wearing a pair of sandals,

because in that moment I was afraid they would shoot.

The day before they had fired, so why wouldn't they fire again?

Then there was smoke and tear gas. It was impossible to know what was happening. It was chaos...

I thought: "Here, if someone shoots, how would you know who fired?"

So, I grabbed her by the wrist and never let go.

We stood in front of the entrance to an underground garage,

which seemed like a good spot, because the road could have led us somewhere else.

The underground garage could perhaps serve as a shelter, you could perhaps escape inside.

I don't know why, a woman, who seemed relatively old.

An old lady like one you'd meet at the market, like someone's mother.

I don't remember, dressed in a homelike way,

as if she had come down from her house in slippers to throw out the garbage.

A lady who evidently lived there, told us: "Don't go there, don't go there!".

A squad arrives.

They were no longer policemen, they were officers with grey uniforms,

with yellow bands, gas masks.

They point the rifles with tear gas at us and order us to go inside, to go down into the garage.

At that point, we go down into the garage

we a slither of doubt that they sent us there to protect us from the chaos,

from the mess that was happening on the street.

Maybe it's a way to protect us, as if to say:

"Stay here, nothing will happen to you." "Now, let's see what we can do to sort this out."

That was not the case. It was a different scenario.

After a moment, a group of other police officers descend, this time unarmed,

with gas masks and helmets, with only their batons,

and they begin to furiously beat everyone around.

I raise my hands as high as I can including Laura's. I kept holding her wrist in my hand

and screaming: “Not her! Not her!"

A police officer who had come very close to me, and was about to give me a terrible blow hears,

“Not her! Not her!” and he stops.

He doesn't hit neither me nor her.

While everyone else there were beaten.

We were hearing the sound of scuffling, the thud of the batons hitting people's bodies,

chased up into the most remote part of this garage to be beaten,

and also upstairs, all of them beaten.

After recovering, everyone who was in the garage, us included, were collected and taken out.

We were force to kneel down, and were put on the ground on the sidewalk,

our experience was that of having been captured, not that the police had stopped us,

but of being captured.

They loaded us into police vans and took us away, all of us piled into vans.

Outside it must have been 35 degrees, inside it was at least 50.

The group of people that they had put on that van was absurd.

There are two fifteen-year-old girls in shorts, a journalist who declared himself as such,

he manifested this in front of these policemen,

a journalist from the Sole 24 Ore,

there was us and some other boy.

Even if they just wanted to take us away, what were these young girls doing there?

And so, you couldn't avoid this feeling of being kidnapped.

Not of having been stopped on the street for some legitimate reason, it was inevitable.

When Evandro was taken, we were only a few meters away.

If I had stopped to roll-up a cigarette or tie my shoelaces

I would have probably found myself in that cloud of gas.

And I would have ended up probably finding shelter in that same garage.

After that violent clash, we spent the afternoon running.

I lost my friends. I felt like an animal being hunted. I could not figure why my government wanted me dead.

I wanted to react but the only option was to run and try to find the others.

I was a lawyer of the Genoa Social Forum, so when we would see them taking someone away

we would go up to the vans with our indentification out because we believed it,

we really believed that our ID's would protect us. They aimed a machine gun at me, more than once.

They had never pointed a weapon at me.

Some policemen told me, I never knew if it was true or not, but they had no reason to lie to me,

that, on their radios,

they were being told that we had killed one of them, at that time.

"They killed two of ours, three of ours!"... They created the war.

They created a war where, when they killed Carlo Giuliani in Piazzale Kennedy,

they celebrated by saying “one-nil to us”,

because it was now a war. Orchestrated by some, from above...

Remembering those days is traumatic for me too,

and I didn't want to do it.

Those days opened a rift, for everything... A destruction of everything.

And I remember that that summer everyone was saying to me "You've aged so much.”

I was thirty years old, and I looked much, much less at the time, and I was old.

Several people told me: "The light in your eyes has gone out".

One thing that hurt me terribly

was that some of my friends,

who had left the city, also called me in the days before Diaz and told me,

“You are devastating the city; you are destroying the shops!"

And when I told them about Diaz, this friend of mine,

told me: "Come on, on the news they say it was tomato juice. It's not true, it can't be true."

The fact that they didn't believe me, not just me of course,

meant that the propaganda was working.

At that time, the G8 was the most photographed and most filmed event in the world

but many people still believed that version,

because the other was unbearable, in my opinion.

We were herded into this police van. In the front there were two or three policemen.

Laura asks me: “But what will happen to us now?".

They hear us saying it, I say to Laura:

"I think they'll throw two or three slaps at us and send us away"

and the policeman who was hearing us says: "Hey, look, it's not like we're beasts huh...".

We enter the police base and on either sides,

there are a lot of policemen, carabinieri, I don't know…

Policemen for sure, and I don't know what other police forces, yelling at us...

Yelling at us, I don't know saying what exactly but cheering our capture,

for the fact that we had arrived there, that they had caught us.

As if...In an almost euphoric atmosphere, which indicated...

“Now we have caught you, now you are ours”.

This thing happens exactly as this policeman is answering me and then I say:

"Well, then go tell these guys",

who were so excited that the van had brought in prey.

Laura and the girls are taken to another place.

I observe the scene. They identify them.

After that, I see Laura and these other girls being escorted to the exit,

and I sense that they are releasing her, that they are freeing her.

They handcuff me, they tie my hands behind my back with a plastic band.

Not even the handcuffs, very tight, it hurt really, really hurt.

We are loaded, together with others, on a mini bus this time. Not a van anymore.

I remember this vehicle traveling on the elevated highway of Genoa,

and I thought the journey was going to be short,

instead this vehicle begins to drive and drive. It begins to go much further than I imagined

and I really had no idea where they were taking us.

We then arrive in a place, which everyone then knew as Bolzaneto,

the former barracks of I do not know what law enforcement organization,

which had been specially equipped for the G8 in Genoa

to be a reception center and then subsequent sorting of the arrested,

given the countless arrests they had planned to make in Genoa.

In the end, I escaped from it.

There is hardly anything left in the tape after, finally, in the evening,

we were able to take this train to leave Genoa behind.

There is a great silence on this train,

as if there was nothing to say.

Broken news arrives about those we left behind, about Diaz, about Bolzaneto,

about those who remained submerged.

News arrive, but it's not clear, we don't talk about it much.

The discussion begins, then it gets stuck and remains suspended.

We hardly say a word.

Above all, I am tired

and relieved.

Maybe only now that I look out the window and am safe,

I understand how scared I was.

But I am also ashamed,

I am so ashamed.

I am pissed but above all I am ashamed.

Someone is sleeping.

But in eyes of those still awake, I see something very similar.

I believe that my long silence on Genoa begins with this journey after dark.

Maybe, not just mine.

And now, it still seems to me, that I have nothing more to say.

Judge Sabella?

Good evening.

A little while ago you and I found ourselves, on opposite sides of the same story.

According to you, opposites.

Yes, indeed.

There's a series of, let's say, established facts, judicial paths, but maybe

we will have time to talk about this.

It's clear that there are indelible memories of this story, which will probably remain so.

What do you remember of those days? What image do you have of Genoa?

I have an image of the city devastated, twice.

First, by those who made sure that violence dominated what could have been,

and should have been,

an absolutely peaceful and normal way of expressing their dissent

to globalization, to the powerful of the world.

The second time by those who made sure that the truth about those facts never emerged

and that is the greatest devastation that we would carry inside forever.

At least I always carry it inside me.

It ruined my life. Those two days in Genoa ruined my life.

So, for me Genoa is the reason why I haven't slept for twenty years.

I am more and more convinced, I said it at least fifteen years ago,

when I was able to speak,

that they were probably looking to have a dead man. And the victim for the government of Genoa

should not have been Giuliani but was supposed to be the Officer Placanica.

The government's goal, I was told,

was to ensure that the delegations could work quietly and

that the demonstrations would take place quietly without devastating Genoa.

To achieve this goal there were two key points.

One was to operate with pushbacks at the border and isolate the violent fringes,

the black bloc, the black suits, before they arrived in Genoa.

On this, the leaders of the police force told us,

that very precise information had arrived from the intelligence of the other countries

that we were able to do a great job at the borders.

And then all those who had managed to pass

this grid at the border would have been arrested in the act of crime,

for criminal association aimed at devastation and looting,

when they were found in possession of either black hood, a baseball bat,

a Molotov cocktail or some instrument designed to attack.

And if the government's goal, as it was indicated to us,

was to stop the black blocs, then why when Marta Vincenzi,

then president of the province, reports that there are black blocs in the school of San Pier d'Arena,

nobody goes there? Why?

Nobody was arrested on the 16th of July.

On the 17th nobody was arrested. On the 18th again nobody gets arrested,

on the morning of the 19th they don't bring anybody.

The first arrested who arrives in Bolzaneto arrives while I was in the Marassi prison,

which had just been attacked by a group of demonstrators, arrives on Friday afternoon.

And what happened to the preventive arrest plan?

I was in Kosovo while there was still the conflict with the T4

and I had met several of the carabinieri who were there, who had been sent to Kosovo.

Very good people perfectly capable, very capable, in public order.

I found these Carabinieri in Genoa, but where? All of them were in the red zone.

All to watch, pardon my French,

the legs of the hostesses of the international delegations,

but certainly not to do their work outside the red zone,

where they were really needed. Who was outside the red zone?

Placanica, the auxiliaries, people without experience. These must have been signs that

I, unfortunately, did not catch in time,

I did not understand that the plan of the center-left government had changed under the center-right government.

-Why didn't you refuse the job?

Good question.

They said not turning down the job was the first mistake I made. It is true.

Why didn't you refuse the job? You're right.

I should have turned it down. In hindsight, I should have rejected it.

At that moment I thought I could do it.

Today you talk to us about the condition of feeling like a victim.

It is as if you are putting yourself in competition with the victims of this situation.

-I am not competing at all,

I just say that in those 180 hearings of the trial in which I was unable to participate,

at the outcome of those 180 hearings, do you know how the Genoa court concluded?

"Dr. Sabella had founded reason to believe that his provisions were duly respected."

If I told you that as far as I remember, as far as I have read,

you, at a certain moment, said that after all, in Bolzaneto,

at least in the early days, everything went pretty well.

-I was convinced.

-Did you feel like congratulating your collaborators?

I was convinced, look...

At the same time, however, that the first testimonies of people who had been

tortured in Bolzaneto were emerging...

I had no direct knowledge, I had turned to people,

Ithey had assured me that nothing strange had happened.

I had talked to the doctors, I had talked to Commander Gugliotta,

I had talked to those of the GOM,

the Mobile Operational Group, and they had assured me that nothing had happened.

That perhaps something the state police had done in the cells at the back.

But they behaved well as I had told them to behave.

You said that an image of Bolzaneto that stuck with you

was that of a policewoman who was polishing her nails while

she was talking on the phone with one of her boyfriends. It's true, it's very true.

And you stated, reported, that this was the image you remember most of Bolzaneto.

Because I found everything normal.

But don't you find it a bit paradoxical that despite everything that happened

this is the image you rememeber the most?

It wasn't the image I took home with me,

it was a way to represent what I found in Bolzaneto as I arrived.

There was this beautiful girl who was on the phone,

who was polishing her nails and I found everything calm,

this was the situation I saw, this was inside the registry office,

this is the situation I found in Bolzaneto.

I have not seen the horror images in Bolzaneto,

I have not seen the horror in Bolzaneto so I cannot carry the horror inside,

I can imagine it, after reading and understanding what happened.

But when I went to Bolzaneto, in those 5 times I went there,

what I found was an absolutely normal situation

She was like in the bathroom on a Sunday morning, polishing her nails and talking to her suitors about herself.

That's the truth. I am unable to explain what happened in Bolzaneto.

How was it possible that people who had taken the same oath of allegiance

to the state as me were guilty of such horrendous crimes? I mean, I can't get over it.

-But you as you gave specific instructions…

you gave commands and these orders were not followed. Why?

That's the question I want answered... who is it that stirred up the police forces in that direction?

-No, but specifically regarding what you were responsible for.

Because...the spirit of union and emulation of the police force went into action.

In fact, I would never have known anything of what was happening,

as the credibility of a prisoner is zero.

And I had also told them, I told them:

"Be careful guys because this time you are not dealing with the usual thieves or

subjects who go in and out of jail, who have experience ...

now you are dealing with normal people, with intellectuals, professionals,

people of a certain cultural level,

you have to behave well.

You can find the son of a lawyer, the son of a consul, beware, behave yourself."

"Have you ever heard that we are the UN blue helmets? We don't give a damn that there is war,

when people come to us they must feel safe, we are the UN peacekeepers."

Do you know how many times they made fun of me for saying these expressions?

In fact, in the light of the facts it will also agree that it is laughable.

I know! I feel ridiculous, it is clear that I feel ridiculous!

I gave them these instructions, then what happened in Bolzaneto happened.

Do you genuinely think that you did not make a mistake?

-Yes, I think in good faith that I wasn't wrong.

I got fooled and honestly it hurts me a lot on a personal level, but honestly I don't have ...

To be honest, it's easy to be wise after the events. I was thinking that maybe I could've done something...

Honestly at that moment I did not know what that might have been.

Attention, Alfonso Sabella made a mistake due to omitted control,

but who controlled of the commissioner on the police that operated? The controller of the prefect?

The control of the public prosecutor or the deputy public prosecutors?

Since the judicial police depend directly, hierarchically, functionally on them.

Where were these? Was there only Alfonso Sabella?

Who omitted the check?

I have omitted the check, we acknowledge that I have omitted the check.

Well, the uncovering of the truth regarding what happened in Bolzaneto I think took place.

-Yes, but on the facts of the G8, no.

The facts are clear.

Very clear, certainly now they are crystal clear.

Also in regards to your involvement, the one that you somehow dispute.

-Excuse me, what does the court sentence say?

No, at this point you tell me, what does the other sentence say, the dismissal order?

The measures concerning you say that you were ...

What was said? Quote exactly the points that regard me...

-The Court of Auditors speaks of lack of supervision. -Exactly.

As for the archiving...

-Did the Court of Auditors made me defend myself? -Yes, but you never let me finish.

Did the Court of Auditors give me a chance to defend myself?

Has the Court of Auditors ever heard a witness?

I never had the opportunity to defend myself in a legal procedure where I could bring my evidence,

no one has allowed me in twenty years, because my testimony is uncomfortable.

Let's say that there is an infamous dismissal measure against me,

or not infamous in the sense that it says that I am responsible...

that there is a sentence of the Court of Auditors,

we can also say it, I say that there is a sentence of the Court

and that in any case I never had the opportunity to be defended.

Or defend myself in this process. Never! Never!

Because I never had the opportunity to defend myself on the filing process.

One two and three...

-Please. -Thank you.

I am taken inside a large room.

A large room that will have been, I don't know, 7 or 8 meters on each side.

Double the size of this room, so maybe a few meters more. And here the story of the detention in Bolzaneto begins

which in those moments meant that policemen, carabinieri,

entered this cell in turn, for their own pleasure.

Insulting us, laughing at us, beating us, taking our head and knocking it against the wall

and this thing happened at alternate moments.

Moments when nothing happened alternated with moments when this door opened

and someone would come around.

So, depending on their mood, they could pick on the long-haired boy, with the dreads,

who was heavily targeted, or someone else who had been closer to where the tear gas had flown,

who had the smell of tear gas on him.

This meant that he was a troublemaker and it was a reason to become the target of violence,

of these acts, some of which were heavier and decidedly violent,

for the thuds, for the blows I felt around me. For some of the punches that I received as well,

And others more again, as if it was a language,

a language that spoke to us and communicated things to us both implicitly and explicitly.

Explicit in saying: "Now you are here we have you and we can do whatever we want."

Implicit in saying: "Now we are here and other rules apply.

Forget what you have in mind, here they do not apply."

This was a first step, the second was the photo-signaling and fingerprint registration.

And here again, we were all handcuffed, with tight, very tight plastic straps.

We are taken outside, in the meantime it was nighttime.

I have no idea what time it was... We were picked up at 3 PM, three thirty in the afternoon

by then it must have been around nine in the evening, it was already a bit dark, perhaps 10 PM.

We are all placed on our knees facing the wall,

with our hands handcuffed behind our backs, in a very difficult position to hold.

Also because the place where they make us kneel was a broken sidewalk

and the pain in the knees was very strong.

I stayed there but kept trying to find a position that prevented me from suffering so much,

also because we stayed there for a long time.

Behind us the mocking voices continued...

At one point a younger carabiniere said to the older carabiniere:

"We would need Benito for these here." and the other replies with great nonchalance:

"No, no, we would need the gas chamber here." "Here, we would need Hitler."

With a way of speaking that at that point was not joking,

it was not overly serious but it was not a paradoxical language.

For me this was very clear, it was not a paradoxical language.

Progressively, I feel that I am getting drained, not to use a more technical term,

I feel that I am beginning to feel that a couple of things are happening to me.

The first is that I begin to feel a little separated from my body.

My body a little separate from me.

As if I were taking note of the fact that I was beginning to put some distance

between what was happening around me and what could happen to me

Maybe I was trying to preserve a part of me that could continue to stay sane.

And I'm not talking so much about a body injured by a few blows, from some physical injury,

but about a body seized and total object in the hands of someone else,

which you no longer have the ability to manage and control.

Because, perhaps, in a state of detention the main thing you feel is something missing in your body.

Everything else comes later.

I begin to feel like this thing is happening to me right now,

that there is a fragment of separation between me and my body.

The other thing is that I no longer have an idea of the future,

I mean the immediate future.

I no longer think what will happen to me,

I no longer think where they will take me, I no longer think when they will release me,

because I am sure they will release me,

I am sure of it.

I was taken to the medical examination room, where there was a female soldier and a doctor,

who was later sentenced,

who made me strip naked, they made me do pushups. They obviously mistreated me,

they forced me to collect the garbage that was on the ground.

And that was another moment in which I felt that we were,

at each step, going a little deeper, a little deeper in what they were doing to us

a little more articulated, that is.

To each one of these moments, there's damage associated.

A damage that I later went on to understand for how reversible it actually was.

And in some ways I consider it a partly irreversible damage, It cannot be undone.

And I believe this is the most harmful component when something evil is done to you.

And for a few rare moments

I thought, who knows where my friends were, what was happening,

what they thought of me, where they thought I was, what I was living, where they were.

Laura.

I thought it was difficult-

I thought it was difficult for them too, because I was gone.

My knees were aching madly,

I began to get terribly cold, there was a strong temperature range

inside these rooms, it was very cold.

It's like there was been some kind of pneumatic vacuum of the mind in those hours.

I think I made myself to be as willing as possible to accept whatever was happening to me,

without thought, without resistance, without opposition,

I don't know how to explain it differently.

It is beginning to become clear that the night is ending,

the temperature is rising a bit and for me it was starting to be a very important thing,

I had shivered a lot during the night.

We understand that they were taking us away.

They load us one at a time on a bus this time.

They handcuff us again, this time the handcuffs were hooked on one side to a device inside the bus

and on the other to one of our wrists.

We are closed in closed compartments in turn in which there were two.

And there I felt a great relief related to the fact that the sun was starting to warm.

The bus leaves, the climate seemed slightly more relaxed. Perhaps it was now early morning,

perhaps by now all the oppression had already been exercised for many hours.

Those who sought satisfaction in that type of situation had largely had it.

We had suffered sufficiently. We were more, how to say, harmless than we had ever been.

Until we get to a prison.

They keep us still and begin to walk us into a large corridor that goes towards the inside of the prison.

One of the prison guards arrives,

I am in front and this other guy who was dumped after me, behind me, who says:

"No, I'll take this one." And says to me: "What do you do?"

"I work at a bank." "Oh you work at a bank, oh good."

And he throws me two or three punches with a lot of violence,

I expected it, but I didn't expect it at that moment,

and then I feel these punches and him who continues to hold me.

He was wearing gloves.

He throws these punches at me and tells me nothing.

He takes me into a room where they also take this other boy, they force us to put our fingers against the wall.

This was new, even more absurd.

And we are there with both of our faces punched.

Another comes in, I don't know who he was

and I feel a truncheon arrive, with a rubber baton, very violent on the neck, both to me and to him.

Only one, but a very tough blow.

Neither of us took a turn, neither of us said anything.

And this guy, coming out, tells us:

"If you are good, nothing will happen to you anymore."

After that they close the door and leave.

That's the first moment we are like this, free to stand up without having to respond to an order,

to look at each other. The other boy's name was Davide,

also with his face swollen from the punches he had just taken.

A lot of hours pass, until the evening,

it is clear that we will be released, practically all those who have been taken to Alessandria.

I don't know why I am released,

I don't know why I was arrested and I don't even know why I am released.

There is almost an atmosphere of celebration, as if greeting friends.

These guards seemed to communicate to us that something beautiful was about to happen.

"Aren't you happy we're going to release you? Now, go home."

As if everthing was alright, as if it was all normal, as if this experience was a fact of the world we live in.

You can end up in a place like this, but then if you haven't done anything wrong,

if you are a nice person, we release you and you can go home.

"Aren't you glad you're going home?"

I didn't feel anything.

We stayed there a while longer until, in small groups, they took us to the exit and out on foot,

through the large iron door that is in the prison of Alessandria and they threw us there, on the square.

An asphalt square 100km from my house, at midnight.

I was with someone from Turin, who got picked up and gave me a lift,

I came down with him and left me in Moncalieri.

in the square in front of the Moncalieri arch and that's where it all ended.

There were most of the friends, with whom I was in Genoa, around me

to whom I gave a very brief summary of what had happened.

In retrospect I think they were almost afraid to touch me,

perhaps they felt or imagined that I was so delicate and fragile that they did not know how to behave.

The expression remained impressed on me,

it pains me a lot at this moment, the expression of my brother,

who looked at me with sunken eyes, as if he were hallucinating.

I stop here.

I don't know if it's really been twenty years,

we were full of dreams then, dreams that were not naive at all but clear, concrete.

If listened, the world could have gone somewhere else.

They weren't the dreams you get at night.

It was the ability to imagine something different together with others.

Maybe I'm beginning to understand why I've never truly told this story. And why I stopped telling it altogether.

What did we do with Genoa? What did we built afterwards? Genoa stole our words.

But after twenty years, Evandro and I told the whole story.

And this thing had never happened before.

But I am still ashamed

and perhaps it is something more than just a couple of meters that separated our destinies that July day.

But this time I am not silent in this train.

Telling,

for as long as we need.