Diaz

In 2001, on the last day of the G8 summit in Genoa, just before midnight, more than 300 police officers stormed the Diaz school, looking for black bloc demonstrators. Inside the school were 90 activists, mostly students from around Europe along with a handful of foreign journalists, preparing to bunk down for the night on the school’s floors. As the police burst in, the young demonstrators raised their hands to surrender. Undeterred and unmoved, the officers unleashed a calculated frenzy of violence, beating both young and old, male and female indiscriminately. Diaz: Don’t Clean Up This Blood reconstructs the events of those terrible days from the viewpoints of the police, the protesters, the victims and the journalists who were caught up in the tragedy to analyse how frustration can explode into raw, uncontrollable violence. Vicari’s visceral, dynamic filmmaking drops the viewer into the dark heart of politics and reminds you through the inclusion of original footage taken at the scene that this may be a movie but it is not fiction. (Universal Pictures UK)