Repression is part and parcel of democracy – a power system that, while it needs legitimacy and consensus, also requires control, and redefining the limits within which to be “free citizens.”
It is often necessary to counter the enemy to the point of making it inoffensive. Genoa’s G8 Summit in 2001 demonstrated this in the fiercest of ways.
Through Lena and Niels (Hamburg), Chabi (Zaragoza), Mina (Paris), Dan (London), Michael (Nice), and Muli (Berlin), the film aims to restore the testimony of those who experienced for themselves the violence in the raid on the Diaz school and the torture at the Bolzaneto detention centre.
Muli’s story emerges from this ensemble account.
Muli summarizes the reasons why he decided to commit to politics – a road that led to his participation at the Genoa 2001 Summit, the violence he suffered, and his choice to return to Genoa to testify at the trials.
He has returned to face his trauma, immediately transforming it into an opportunity to find moral redemption. Through his mature experience on a new political path, he reacquires the will to deal with others and, to be with others. And above all, he discovers another Genoa.
“At the school, they couldn’t keep us down.”
Although his life has changed, his ideals from that time have remained the same.