All’Ombra del Porto

The documentary explore complexity, showing thepossibility to include video ethnography as auseful method to study social issues. Theresearcher, infact, through visual methods, hasthe possibility of showing natural setting and alsoto transmit strong emotions that are the basisof social reality. Visual approach becamefundamental in the century of technology andcommunication. To improve this method wehave worked with an antiracist group that isfighting for the regularization of peddlers inGenoa, Italy. This group is self-organized byimmigrants, and the majority of them is sanspapierand come from Senegal. The video isrecorded both in Italy and in Senegal and try toexplain to italian citizens that also these guysare "persons". Understand this concept isreally important because sans-papiers arestrongly criminalized by italian government,laws and media, and it is fundamental tochange the public opinion. Working with thisorganization and the families in Senegal wasfascinating but also really difficult: problem forwho and how film, where reproducing video,agree upon what messege we want trasmit,etc. The paper will discuss how a method likevideo is able to capture the complexity of urbanspaces and can transmit, better than othersmethods, emotions and feelings, to bringpeope closer to "Others". Potentially, video is atool that has this capacity and it could be ableto make debate and to modify public opinion, atleast at local level.