G8 Genoa documents preserved at Bologna social center

The Centro di documentazione dei movimenti in Bologna houses the majority of legal documents from the trials related to the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa. The archive includes 310 folders, thousands of documents, 6,275 newspaper articles, 1,350 hours of VHS footage, 80,000 photos, and 18,000 audio recordings, including police radio communications and emergency calls. The material was collected by the Genoa Legal Forum, a legal support group coordinating about 150 lawyers. After the trials ended in 2013, the archive risked being lost due to institutional disinterest. In February 2021, activists moved the documents to Bologna using a car and a rented van during the pandemic. The Centro doc, founded in 2004 within the Vag61 social center, is now named after Francesco Lorusso and Carlo Giuliani. It operates with four activists and some university interns, relying on self-financing events. The archive is open for consultation on Tuesdays or by request, frequented by researchers and journalists. The Soprintendenza archivistica dell'Emilia-Romagna recognized it as a site of cultural interest in 2015, but it receives no public funding. Historian Toni Rovatti emphasizes the importance of preserving alternative narratives alongside official archives.