1944 – the Ventotene Manifesto was secretly printed by the Italian Anonymous Polygraph Society with the intention of promoting federalism throughout Europe. In the early 1940s, Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni were confined on Ventotene, a small Mediterranean island where the Fascist regime sent its most dangerous opponents; and while they were on the island they began to dream of a United Europe. With World War II raging all around them, Spinelli, Rossi and Colorni developed their idea and used cigarette papers to write down the first drafts of their document. But the future of Europe wouldn’t have been what it is now, if it hadn’t been for a woman called Ursula Hirshmann who managed to conceal the Ventotene Manifesto in the lining of her coat and smuggle it to the mainland. The end of the war brought an end to their political confinement and Ursula became Altiero’s wife. They continued their fight together until their extraordinary idea of a free and united Europe became reality. A story of love and politics that traces the birth of a united Europe through the lives of Altiero and Ursula.