Even planting a seed can be revolutionary. The “unauthorised gardeners” of our cities know this well — they are the protagonists of a documentary on guerrilla gardening whose fate depends on crowdfunding.
Replanting that flower bed everyone has forgotten about. Noticing a neglected green area and going to sort it out. Cleaning up a park that has taken on the appearance of a rubbish dump. These are everyday, ordinary actions for guerrilla gardeners — ordinary people who, armed with nothing more than hoes, watering cans and a healthy dose of civic spirit, dedicate their time to looking after public green spaces.
In form it is a "subversive" and unauthorised action, but in substance guerrilla gardening is nothing more than a spontaneous voluntary activity, aimed at making neglected streets and public spaces more beautiful. It can take the form of an organised "attack" that mobilises large numbers of people in an impromptu way, or of more politically correct activities such as urban allotments, or indeed the spontaneous action of a single individual.
Having started in New York in the 1970s, the phenomenon spread across Europe thanks to the impetus of London-based Richard Reynolds and subsequently reached Italy as well, when various groups began to connect more easily through social networks — to the point of proclaiming a national guerrilla gardening day, established from 4 November 2011.
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Within a few years the groups had multiplied and all adopted ironic, representative names: from the Friarielli Ribelli in Naples to the Ammazza che Piazza crew in Taranto, from Terra di Nettuno in Bologna to the Abbracciapalo in Milan — to name just a few. In some cases they were driven by political convictions and, in many others, by the simple desire to do something immediate and concrete to counter environmental degradation.
Countless "unauthorised gardening" initiatives have been recorded across the Boot ever since. The website acts as a connector. Four national gatherings — held between 2013 and 2016 in Bologna, Rome, Taranto and Milan — have served to consecrate them.
All of this is now the subject of the documentary Giardinieri d'assalto: storie di guerrilla gardening in Italia, directed by Angelo Camba who, camera in hand, has followed all the gatherings over the years with one precise ambition: to create a narrative of the phenomenon and its protagonists without turning it into "a self-celebratory account".
He explains it himself: "I liked the idea that guerrilla gardeners were people determined to do something concrete, without waiting for help from above. I think this is the best way to tackle the inertia that exists in Italy around certain types of problems — from degradation to waste. Ours is a country of contradictions and, in this historical moment, it needs examples of grassroots action like these more than ever."
Always at his side and in front of the lens was Gianni Manfredini — architect, cultural promoter and, more recently, actor — known by the pseudonym Piante volanti. In Milan he was among the first "green guerrillas" to take action with street art interventions designed to beautify the city. It was his idea to hang simple cans from lampposts, transformed into colourful planters for small plants. "Guerrilla gardening is a simple and immediate way of doing something," admits Gianni. "You see a degraded area and you roll up your sleeves. That's why so many groups got going so quickly."
There is no prototype of a guerrilla gardener. Anyone can become one, sometimes without even knowing it. There are doctors, factory workers, students, professors and even pensioners who operate both in groups and alone. "In Bologna there's a woman who was spotted by the Terra di Nettuno group simply because she was tending the flower bed beneath her block of flats, fed up with seeing it covered in rubbish," the director recounts. "In Taranto there's a group of very young people who started taking action years ago, driven by a desire to redeem a run-down city. Restoring degraded areas often means reclaiming them socially as well."
The mission of many guerrilla gardeners is also to "build social cohesion", stimulating residents' civic awareness. As happened in 2014 in Rome's Centocelle neighbourhood, where a planted flower bed was taken to heart by local people, becoming ever more lush over time. "Involving and raising awareness among people is another way of doing guerrilla gardening," explains Angelo Camba.
"If you can draw people out of a certain aridness, they tend to develop a passion for it and make their own contribution. It's a somewhat utopian idea but, in my view, it's one of the most beautiful things about guerrilla gardening."
The paradox, however, remains. All these people, working for free for the common good, do so without authorisation and therefore theoretically risk a fine from the authorities. Something that, to be fair, generally does not happen, except in rare cases where guerrilla actions take on — more or less overtly — the role of a protest, rubbing someone up the wrong way.
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As mentioned, the documentary Giardinieri d'assalto will retrace the national guerrilla gardening gatherings, but to be completed it needs a helping hand. Angelo Camba's idea is to return with Gianni Manfredini to the places that hosted the gatherings and the guerrillas' actions, in order to document what has happened in the meantime and meet the protagonists. Among them one in particular: Lorenza Zambon, the actress-gardener — as she likes to call herself — who for many years, through her performances, has championed the cause with charisma and passion.
A necessary conclusion to complete the story and show what fruit the many seeds planted have borne — not only in the earth, but above all in people's lives.
"At the moment many groups are no longer as active as they once were and are no longer coordinating with each other," Gianni Manfredini tells us. "Many people, however, have taken new paths and adopted lifestyles that are the offspring of that passion. Those who have turned to creative recycling, or who have decided to go and live in the mountains, are in reality still doing 'assault gardening', even if in a different way. I myself, putting on shows in schools where I tell children they can get their hands dirty with soil and plant an acorn, am still doing guerrilla gardening."
To make the project a reality, a crowdfunding campaign has been launched on Produzioni dal Basso, promoted by Infinity, which has recognised the value of the documentary and agreed to co-produce it. The condition: reaching 50 per cent of the set budget, upon which Infinity will officially become co-producer of the documentary, guaranteeing distribution on its platform.
There are only a few days left to give the project a chance. Anyone who shares its ideals can make a free contribution and become part of this movement.