• Director(s):

    CONFORTI (Barbara), JOZSEF (ERIC)

  • Producer(s):

    LILA PRODUCTION, ARTE FRANCE

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2025

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

She is Italy’s first female prime minister and the first far-right leader to head a major European democracy since 1945. To understand this political shift, we must look at the group she joined in her youth and later brought to power: the Gabbiani (Seagulls).

Housed in an ancient ruin on the Oppian Hill near the Colosseum, the section works as a tight-knit group bound by the ideals found in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a book they hold sacred. This small group of activists known as the Gabbiani, whom she met in the early 1990s, has stood by her since the beginning of her career in politics. They are now her closest confidants, helping her head Italy. This historical investigation tells the story of how this community rose to power, profiling its key members and revealing how political decisions are made, caught between normalization of the far right and loyalty to the group’s founding values. The documentary also explores Meloni's dilemma: cooperating with European institutions or aligning with Donald Trump, who sees her as a strategic ally in building a so-called ‘reactionary international’.