Thirty leading Italian film directors will turn their lenses on the G8 summit in Genoa next month, and on the assorted anti-globalisation movements in town to register their protest.

The collective film of the event is being coordinated by the director Francesco Maselli to give a voice to dissident opinions which may not receive a hearing from the mainstream media.

"Only directors with long experience behind a camera can do justice to the particularity and complexity of an event like the one in Genoa," Maselli told the leftwing daily L'Unita yesterday.

Among the directors supporting the project are the veteran Gillo Pontecorvo, Gabriele Salvatores, Ricki Tognazzi, Carlo Lizzani and Pasquale Scimeca.

"It is our duty to roll up our sleeves and work with others on such an important occasion, when the quality of life of the future is being decided," said Pontecorvo, the director of The Battle of Algiers.

He does not expect to record the same scenes of violence as in his classic film on the Algerian war of independence, but believes that cinema enjoys an editorial freedom that is lacking in Italian television today.

"All the major Italian film directors have a past in documentary-making. We will be reviving the habit of our youth," he said.

Pontecorvo said he expected the film to be shown in cinemas and broadcast on television. Most of the project's directors have leftwing sympathies, so he does not anticipate problems in harmonising their diverse accounts of the event, which takes place from July 20 to 22.

"The editing will be the crucial moment, which will set the tone and determine the substance of the thing," he said.

The veteran director Luigi Magni has pledged his support for the project, although he said he would not be braving the streets of Genoa in what is likely to be torrid summer heat.

"The issue of globalisation should involve everyone," he said.

"They have to realise that the world cannot be destroyed for profit, to take account of the conditions of life in Africa and Asia, of hunger, drought and the destruction of the polar ice-caps. What are we going to do with the world? That's the real question."

The director Carlo Lizzani told L'Unita: "I am supporting the initiative because I completely agree with those who say that the world is not just the G8, but is also another 2bn people who are not represented and who have the right to be. It seems obvious to me that cinema should be on their side."

The government has launched a charm offensive to stifle any potential anarchist violence at the summit through a strategy of attention.

The chief of police, Gianni De Gennaro, has been sent to Genoa to meet leaders of the 700 protest movements represented in the Genoa Social Forum.

Renato Ruggiero, the foreign minister and a former chairman of the World Trade Organisation, has offered to transmit a document expressing the views and wishes of the protesters to all the world leaders attending the summit.

The government hopes its assurances that dissent will enjoy a high visibility in Genoa will eliminate the protesters' desire to drive home their point with violence.