Disobbedienti
A video by Oliver Ressler
In cooperation with Dario Azzellini
Video, 54 min, 2002
The video "Disobbedienti" thematizes the Disobbedienti's
origins, political bases, and forms of direct action on the basis
of conversations with seven members of the movement.
The Disobbedienti emerged from the Tute Bianche during the demonstrations
against the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001. The "Tute Bianche"
were the white-clad Italian activists who used their bodies
protected by foam rubber, tires, helmets, gas masks, and homemade
shields in direct acts and demonstrations as weapons of
civil disobedience. The Tute Bianche first appeared in Italy in
1994 in the midst of a social setting in which the "mass
laborer," who had played a central role in the 1970s in production
and in labor struggles, was gradually replaced in the transition
to precarious post-Fordist means of production. By forcing the
closing of detention camps through specially developed acts of
dismantling the Tute Bianche became involved in protests against
precarious working conditions and the immigrants' struggle for
freedom of movement. The Tute Bianche were part of the demonstration
against the WTO in Seattle in 1999 and the IMF in Prague in 2000.
They sent delegates to the Lakandon rainforest in Chiapas and
accompanied the Zapatist Comandantes 3,000 kilometers to Mexico
City.
At the G8 summit in Genoa the Tute Bianche decided to take
off their trademark white overalls that had given them their name
and instead blend in the multitude of 300,000 demonstration participants.
The transition from the Tute Bianche to the Disobbedienti, the
disobedients, also marked a development from "civil disobedience"
to "social disobedience." The repressive actions and
massacre by the police force in Genoa brought the practice of
social disobedience in from the streets to the most diverse social
realms. In the video, the Disobbedienti spokesperson Luca Casarini
describes the Tute Bianche as a subjective experience and a small
army, whereas Disobbedienti is a multitude and a movement.
Disobbedienti maintains the political form of the Tute Bianche
and attempts to create a better legal justice for and from the
people. Spectacular actions are still being carried out against
detention centers, such as the dismantling of the detention camp
in the Via Mattei in Bologna on 25 January 2002, as shown in the
video. Additionally, attempts are being made to further develop
"social disobedience" as a collective practice of various
groups, to block the flows of goods and communication, to make
general the strikes of individual groups, and to plan and carry
out general strikes.
The conversations with the Disobbedienti were carried out in Italian in Bologna and Genoa in July 2002. There are two versions of the video "Disobbedienti," one with German and one with English subtitles.
Concept, interview preparation, editing, realization: Oliver
Ressler
Interviews, conceptual work, translation: Dario Azzellini
Camera: Claudio Ruggieri
Sound: Rainer Antesberger
Interview partners: Luca Casarini, Ulia Conti, Gianmarco de Pieri,
Enrico Ludovici, Federico Martelloni, Francesco Raparelli, Francesca
Ruocco