Now it's Genoa G8 - the movie

Anti-globalisation protesters march behind protective screens at Genoa

GENOA, Italy (CNN) -- A group of 25 Italian directors are planning to release a controversial movie about the violence at this year's Genoa G8 summit.

The July gathering was marred by a succession of violent clashes between anti-globalisation protesters and Italian police in which one protester was shot dead, 200 people injured and 300 arrested.

The film, still being edited and as yet untitled, will show preparations for the meeting between the heads of the eight most prosperous nations, the summit itself, and the 250,000 who took to the streets in protest.

"This film will not just be about the violence, but about the whole nature of the anti-globalisation 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, Reuters reported.

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The directors worked closely with Vittorio Agnoletto, the head of the Genoa Social Forum protest organisation, while shooting more than 260 hours of footage.

They 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," Agnoletto, a lawyer turned protester who is now the spokesman for the umbrella organisation representing about 700 protest groups, told Reuters.

Ironically the Genoa summit has been something of a backdrop to the whole Venice festival.

At the opening ceremony last Wednesday anti-globalisation protesters unfurled a banner in front of the movie palace at the Lido of Venice. It read "G8 Genoa, You will not cancel out the truth.''

When hotel bed space ran out for visitors to the world's oldest film festival, which ranks alongside Cannes and Berlin as one of the biggest, a liner used as accommodation during the Genoa summit, Le Cezanne, was drafted in.

The G8 film, which will be released in October in two versions, a 60-minute documentary for television and a 120-minute feature for cinema, is certain to attract huge controversy in Italy.

Police chiefs 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 that 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 Carlo Giuliani, 23 by police.

American Quaker Susanna Thomas, 21, one of those arrested at Genoa

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-globalisation 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.