» THE FILM AND THE BOOK » THE THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE » PIAZZA ALIMONDA » AROUND THE WORLD

Carlo Giuliani, ragazzo

Director: Francesca Comencini
Produced by: Luna Rossa Cinematografica
Screenplay: Francesca Comencini, Luca Bigazzi
Editing: Linda Taylor
Year: 2001
The video of the film is now available in Italy.

"A mother goes over her son's short day, from the moment he left home at midday on a July day until the moment when a bullet hit his head in the afternoon. Another mother listens and records her voice, her face, her tale. The crowds which invaded Genoa to act as a stumbling-block on the world's lords' path, to act as the foundation stone of a new world, flow between them. Young Carlo Giuliani, Haidi's son, is nothing but ash today. His mother does not curse the day, the hour, the murderer. She talks about her son, who was killed whilst demonstrating, and leaves him to us as an inheritance, because that son is ours and must stay a demonstrator."
(Erri De Luca)

Un anno senza Carlo(A year without Carlo)
by Haidi and Giuliano Giuliani
with Antonella Marrone (journalist for l'Unità)
Published by Baldini&Castoldi (pgg.128, euro 11,40)

Genoa, 20th July 2001: during the clashes between the police forces and the anti-G8 demonstrators, someone fires twice from a police jeep in piazza Alimonda. One of the two shots hits Carlo Giuliani, aged 23, in the face and kills him. Carlo was holding a fire extinguisher. A year later - a year characterised by political and judiciary polemics, by the enquiries carried out by the Genoese judiciary and by the parliamentary commissions of enquiry, by the attempts by the police to cover up what happened - the journalist Antonella Marrone has met Haidi and Giuliano, Carlo's parents, for what was a mix between an interview, a confrontation and a confession about how their life has changed since their son's death. This book is the result of those talks, a sort of diary which links the past and the present, the interweaving of thoughts, memories and voices. A year without Carlo is the path which these parents have followed since their son's death, their painstaking attempts to uncover a truth which is hidden from them through the patient analysis of photos, videos and documents about the events in Genoa. A year in which desperation has given way to civil engagement, to the will to provide information (in schools, in trade union assembles, in social fora) and to provoke the awakening of consciences. All this has become an ethical imperative for the Giulianis, to alert other young people to what happened and attempt to avoid similar events in the future, and to keep the memory of what occurred alive.

The book, it must be said, makes a strong, clear case for the theory that on the 20th July 2001 those who were responsible for public order deliberately provoked the crowds so as to then justify the ensuing repression, creating the premises for the veritable "trap" represented by piazza Alimonda. However, there is no hatred in the Giulianis words, nor do they seek revenge; what they offer is an extraordinary moral lesson: the right to obtain justice goes beyond the compensation for the victim and concerns the state of justice, which was trampled upon during those days. If this tragedy can serve a purpose it is that of making sure that in the future, in a democratic state, "nobody is allowed to kill a person like this"; the memory of a son can thus serve this purpose.

"Today I feel happy because of every new encounter, every new friendship and every friendship which is renewed thanks to Carlo, though he has no longer been here for a year. Today I feel pain because I cannot share this happiness with him and anger against those who plan deaths every day, for those who believe a human life is less important than the Dow-Jones index. I feel anger against those who killed him -for more than one person is responsible for his death- and continue to do so. A year without Carlo; a year in which one cries, one drowns one's sorrows in a myriad activities, anything so as not to think; a year in which one thinks that soon all this confusion will end and he will come back home. Then you remember that void, and desperately you remember his kiss when he met you, his way of saying hello, his heat when he slept on the sofa and I used to curl up next to him. I lived 23 years with Carlo. How long will I have to live without him?"

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