Antonio Negri 2019

Directed by Marine Hugonnier

Filmed in his home in Paris one late summer, the philosopher and political figure Antonio Negri takes as a starting point a short story — a parable written by Marine Hugonnier — and transforms it into a political hypothesis. It is the story of a community of children who live in roofless houses in a world where two suns shine permanently. When an eclipse is about to take place, the children get scared. They are terrified as they do not know the darkness, they’ve never seen the stars. To cope with their fear, they decide to burn their houses to generate light. From there Antonio Negri weaves anecdotes, evokes Alexis de Tocqueville and Saint Francis of Assisi, protests against biopolitics and formalises arguments which reveal his unconditional engagement for activism, absolute democracy, the need to recreate communities, and his restless quest to find joy in the heart of “the multitude”.