Five hundred years after Machiavelli declared it better for the Prince to be feared than loved, political philosopher Michael Hardt asks: what would it mean to base society on love rather than fear? In an era defined by permanent war and an industry of fear, how do we shift away from exploitation and privatization toward collective care? Hardt looks to "the commons" – not only shared natural resources but the languages and relationships we create together. Drawing on Godard's Alphaville, where the word "love" has been banned and Anna Karina must reinvent the vocabulary of feeling, Hardt suggests we need new tools to act politically. The commons become his antidote to fear-based governance, an invitation to reimagine democracy through dialogue and cooperation.

Palestinian-Brooklynite poet Suheir Hammad delivers a powerful verse of dissent amid military parades and anti-aircraft guns in this one-minute preview of Johan Grimonprez's feature Shadow World. Based on Andrew Feinstein's exposé of the global arms trade, Hammad's poem traces a path from protest to possibility, finding a glimmer of hope within the machinery of war. Brief but electrifying, this rollercoaster fragment announces the larger project's urgent investigation into the economics of violence.

Dedicated to the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who wrote that "if I write love poems, I resist the conditions that don't allow me to write love poems." Palestinian actress Manal Khader recites from Darwish's work, reflecting on possibilities foreclosed by occupation and exile. For Darwish, the river becomes a site of connection where love is exchanged and affirmed – or perhaps forgotten, flowing through our fingers like water. He writes of being "worthy of ourselves, and of a river that runs along beside us." This brief, lyrical film embraces love as resistance, finding in Darwish's verse the fragile bonds of freedom and connection.

Can you tickle yourself? British neurologist Raymond Tallis uses this simple impossibility to argue that consciousness is fundamentally relational rather than internal. If certain sensations can only be triggered by others, then Descartes had it wrong: it's not "I think, therefore I am," but rather "we dialogue, therefore we are." Johan Grimonprez illustrates Tallis's philosophy with images of a heated television debate about Syria, where two speakers violently thrust a table at each other. Like tickling, aggression requires two parties. This elegant short suggests that selfhood emerges not in isolation but through our encounters with others –whether tender or antagonistic.

Johan Grimonprez's genre-defying essay film traces the evolution of airplane hijacking from romantic revolutionary gesture to state-sponsored terrorism. Drawing on Don DeLillo's assertion that "what terrorists gain, novelists lose," the film weaves archival footage of 1960s skyjackings with unexpected detours through disco, fast food, and home movies. Set to David Shea's propulsive soundtrack, this prescient work examines how media spectacle and political violence became increasingly entangled, eerily anticipating the events of 9/11. Grimonprez reveals our own complicity in the appetite for disaster, exploring how terrorism found its ideal stage in the passenger plane and the television screen.

Based on Andrew Feinstein's acclaimed exposé, Johan Grimonprez's documentary penetrates the murky world of international arms dealing. Through expert interviews and archival footage, the film reveals that corruption isn't a side effect of the arms trade – it's the defining factor. Politicians meant to represent our hopes instead sell us fear and nightmares, serving corporations that profit from perpetual conflict. Grimonprez argues that we have privatized the very function of war, allowing bribes and backroom deals to determine the foreign policies of major nations. The result is a world where there must always be a war to fight, where economic interests trump human costs, and where the machinery of violence operates beyond democratic accountability.

Johan Grimonprez creates a double portrait of two men on opposite sides of the arms trade: Chris Hedges, former war correspondent for The New York Times, and Riccardo Privitera, former dealer at Talisman Europe Ltd. While interviewing both for Shadow World, Grimonprez discovered they were describing the same anguish and trauma from paradoxical positions. One has dedicated his life to unmasking lies; the other built his life on them. As their personal and political histories unfold, the film situates the arms trade not as an aberration but as a symptom of a deeper illness: greed. This unsettling companion piece to Shadow World examines how the industry of war damages everyone it touches – sellers and witnesses alike.