Agent of Happiness is a documentary following Amber Gurung, a Bhutanese ‘Happiness Agent’ tasked by the government to collect data on the citizens’ happiness for Bhutan’s Center for Gross National Happiness census. The documentary, co-directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, is set to open in US theaters on November 1, 2024.
Agent of Happiness world premiered earlier this year at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, and went on to screen at a number of other film festivals, including the 2024 DocLands Documentary Film Festival, the 50th Seattle International Film Festival, the 31st Sheffield DocFest, and the 67th San Francisco Film Festival where it won the Audience Award: Documentary Feature.
The official synopsis of the documentary reads: How is happiness measured? Can satisfaction with one’s life be rated on a scale from one to ten? The Kingdom of Bhutan’s famous – and highly exoticized – government policy measuring its nation’s Gross National Happiness operates on the idea that the basic tenets of fulfillment can and should be quantified when calculating their nation’s development. Happiness Agent Amber Gurung embarks throughout the Himalayan mountains to survey the contentment of citizens from different households and lifestyles. While Amber dutifully administers this census, he too is forced to confront his own struggles with fulfillment, and question what makes him happy.
Filmmakers Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó carefully craft a visually stunning, tender narrative around the age-old quest to find the purpose of life.
“As documentary filmmakers, we search for authentic human stories. We feel it’s important to show the deep human dramas behind everyday events, the dynamics of relationships, the hidden, invisible faces of desires, dreams, and fears,” said co-directors Bhattarai and Zurbó in the film’s director statement. “In our films, we often deal with the meeting of cultures, identities, values and patterns. We are attracted to these stories, to intimate life situations where, by bridging the cultural difference, we can show the familiar in the other, the universal values, the feelings that connect us, wherever we grow up in the world.”
Watch the UK trailer for Agent of Happiness.
Related posts:
