Antonio Buonanno

Kids from a huge apartment complex in Rome form a secret society to unite their forces and get back at the nasty adults who 'oppress' them, playing pranks on them to expose their weaknesses.

In the 1950s, a big stir was made by a book (and its corresponding movie) called The Ugly American. Its subject was the grievous damage done to local cultures by well-meaning but essentially clueless (and frequently arrogant) representatives of the U.S. Since then, the phenomenon of cultural damage cause by arrogant tourists and visitors has been demonstrated to be something everyone is capable of. In this thoughtful, comic drama, the subject is Italians overseas. In this film, Malindi Kenya is the playground of rich Italians.

The film recounts the tragedy of Istrian and Dalmatian exiles following the post-war armistice. Maddalena is eighteen years old and lives in Canfanaro, Istria, dreaming of becoming a painter. First the fury of war and then Tito's partisans destroy her family and her dreams.

When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman immersed in a house full of books, turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their friendship.

Love, business, anxieties, friendships, feuds, and resentments paint the picture of the main story, that of a group of criminals who for nearly fifteen years, from 1977 to 1992, cherished an illusion: that of conquering Rome. The Lebanese, Freddo, Dandi, Patrizia, and Commissioner Scialoja are some of the characters inspired by the true story of the Magliana gang. As stated by Aldo Grasso, the first season of the series gives more space to the crime scene, that is, the criminal exploits of the Magliana gang, while the second season delves deeper into the "behind the scenes" of the crime: thus, the gang's repositioning after a key plot event, and the effects and questions this has provoked in the protagonists' consciences.