Hors Cadre - Rencontre avec Hélène Frappat

With ARTE & Actes Sud

This encounter invites us to combine two forms of narrative, a film and a book, around the political figure of Giorgia Meloni.

For this new Hors cadre evening, the writer Hélène Frappat has chosen to screen the second part of the documentary film Giorgia Meloni and the clan of the Seagulls by Barbara Conforti , which resonates with her latest work, Nerona.

In *Nerona*, published by Actes Sud, Hélène Frappat offers a free-spirited and carnivalesque fiction, a fable that seizes upon reality only to subvert it. Through satire and imagination, her text tells the story of a head of state whose opinions and excesses bring her close to fascist figures. It explores the mechanisms of power, figures of authority, and their staged performances through a frequently burlesque distancing technique, offering a better understanding of the political world, sometimes excessively outrageous.

In contrast, the documentary Giorgia Meloni and the Seagull Clan (Part 2 - The Exercise of Power) by Barbara Conforti and Eric Jozsef adopts an analytical approach. This documentary, co-produced and broadcast by ARTE, traces the rise and governing methods of the Italian leader by examining her networks, strategies, and the ideological context in which she operates.

Between fiction and investigation, this meeting proposes to explore how narratives—whether literary or documentary—contribute to the contemporary understanding of power

The evening will begin with the screening of the film, followed by a discussion and a book signing of Hélène Frappat's book Nerona.

About

Giorgia Meloni and the Seagull Clan (2/2) The Exercise of Power
by Barbara Conforti and Eric Jozsef

This two-part documentary details the roadmap which, since the 1990s, has led a young admirer of Mussolini, through successive metamorphoses and makeovers, to appear as an acceptable conservative politician in the European Union.

In September 2022, Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni's party, won the parliamentary elections with 26% of the vote. Appointed Prime Minister the following month, Meloni implemented the conservative program she had promised to Italians during her campaign, a program heavily influenced by identity politics. She enacted a series of punitive measures against humanitarian NGOs, migrants, LGBTQIA+ couples, ravers, and protesters. While stubbornly refusing to call herself "anti-fascist," this strategist simultaneously worked to reassure her European partners. Today, Giorgia Meloni, the first far-right leader in power in Italy since Mussolini, is seen as a model of stability that many aspire to emulate. But her rise to power and her exercise of it raise fundamental questions about the future of Europe.

(France, 2025, 46 min) Co-production: ARTE France - Lila Production
The first part of the documentary, entitled The Origins , is available on arte.tv - the two parts can be viewed separately.

Hélène Frappat

A philosophy graduate and film enthusiast, Hélène Frappat is a novelist and film critic. She has chosen to seek "truth" in fiction. As a novelist, she is the author, published by Actes Sud, of Inverno (2011), Lady Hunt (2013), Noublie pas de respirer (2014), Le Dernier fleuve (2019), Le mont Fuji n'existe pas (2021), Trois femmes disparaissent (2023) and Nerona (2025).

A critic for La Lettre du cinéma and Cahiers du cinéma, she has also written Jacques Rivette, secret compris (Cahiers du cinéma, 2001), Trois films fantômes de Jacques Rivette (Cahiers du cinéma, 2002), Roberto Rossellini (Cahiers du cinéma / Le Monde, 2008) and Toni Servillo, le nouveau monstre (Séguier, 2018).

Hélène Frappat is also a translator, notably for Actes Sud, of works by Laura Lippman, Ann Patchett, Tony Burges…