The (Defeated) Party of Emotions: Reflections on a Short Film

Abstract

This essay reflects on the relationship between emotions, artistic creation, and spectatorship through the experience of making the short film Il partito (perso) delle cose (2026), created in collaboration with Sergio Armaroli. Beginning with a comparison be­tween theatre and cinema, the author argues that theatre primarily engages spectators through a shared emotional space, while film establishes a more individual relationship with its audience. Drawing on theatrical pedagogy and performance practice, the essay explores emotions as embodied movements that shape both physical and symbolic space. Attention is paid to the role of gesture, corporeality, and collective pres­ence in the communication of meaning and feeling. The creative process behind the film is reconstructed as a journey driven by affective forces—friendship, trust, memory, de­sire, uncertainty, and inspiration—which precede and generate narrative form. The film emerges as a constellation of emotional figures, objects of affection, and symbolic presences, revealing how emotions organize experience and storytelling beyond the logic of events alone. The essay also reflects on artistic inspiration as a process of being in­habited by images and impulses that gradually seek expression. Ultimately, it argues that emotions are contagious, relational, and constitutive of both artistic creation and recep­tion, shaping the invisible connections between bodies, spaces, objects, and stories.