CANNES, May 19: An Italian filmmaker said on Sunday Italian authorities had tried to suppress his documentary about alleged police brutality at last year’s Genoa G8 summit where one protester was shot dead by a policeman.

Marco Giusti, whose film “Bella Ciao” is being shown at the Cannes film festival, said the government did not want the footage shown because it revealed the raw violence police used on demonstrators.

“The images are really extremely violent, they can change the public’s opinion about what happened at Genoa — that is why the government does not want them aired,” Giusti told Reuters.

“Whatever format we have tried to show the pictures in, on film or on television, they have been blocked in one way or another,” he said.

There was no immediate reaction from the government about the film.

Giusti and partner Roberto Torelli made the one hour 40 minute documentary from more than 100 hours of footage shot by various sources at the July 2001 summit of the Group of Seven industrialised nations and Russia.

One person was shot dead by a policeman during three days of violent clashes between police and demonstrators. More than 200 people were arrested, while the city was left looking like a war zone of smashed-up buildings and burnt out cars.—Reuters