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12 March1977
Author
Cesare Ballarini
Format
Super8
Duration
03'49''
Credits
Music by Guglielmo Pagnozzi

Chaos reigns in the streets of Bologna, amid violence and repression. Cesare Ballarini from his home has a good view of Via Rizzoli below, in the heart of the city. The clashes following the death of medical student Francesco Lorusso, killed in the street by police gunfire, are violent and reach right up to Ballarini's house. The scene is spooky: the street is completely empty and is crossed at full speed by police trucks. We begin to see first a few demonstrators, and then many, first scattered in the side streets, while the cloud caused by smoke bombs thrown from the adjacent Via Zamboni, the University street, rises. The cameraman alternates between framing the smoke bomb and the crowd. After a throwing of molotov cocktails, the police come running out and hit those who cannot escape with their batons. The camera moves and zooms in several times on the protesters who are fleeing. Then it returns to those surrounded, against whom the police violence has been unleashed. The policemen seize a box and take it away. The film ends here, a mute witness to an urban scenario of dramatic clashes.

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