How can you measure happiness? The country of Bhutan invented Gross National Happiness to do just that, and Amber is one of the agents who travels door to door to meet people and measure how happy they really are. At the age of 40, he is still living with his elderly mother but is nevertheless a hopeless romantic who dreams of finding love: a happiness agent who is in search of his own happiness. Together with Amber we embark on a cross-country road trip meeting citizens from all walks of life, reminding us of the fragility and beauty of our
own happiness. The directors translate the act of measurement of happyness into cinematic experiences that look beyond the graphs and show the mind and soul of Bhutanese people.
Bhutan, Hungary 2024, '94
DIRECTOR: Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó
CAMERA: Arun Bhattarai
MONTAGE: Péter Sass
MUSIC: Ádám Balázs
PRODUCERS: Noémi Veronika Szakonyi, Máté Artur Vincze, Arun Bhattarai
PRODUCTION: Match Frame Productions
FESTIVALS & AWARDS:
Sundance FF (2024)
CPH:DOX (2024)
True/False FF (2024)
Arun Bhattarai
Arun Bhattarai (Bhutan) premiered his first feature-length documentary The Next Guardian (co-directed by Dorottya Zurbó) - an intimate family story set in Bhutan – at IDFA in 2017. The film has been screened at more than 40 international festivals. Before becoming an independent filmmaker, he worked as a TV director at the Bhutan Broadcasting Service for 5 years. He graduated from the first edition of DocNomads Joint Master in documentary directing in 2014. His recent short documentary Mountain Man, about Bhutan’s only glaciologist won the best pitch prize at If/Then Global Short-Pitch at IDFA 2019 and is supported by the IDA-XRM Media incubator program. The film has been screened at IDFA, DOC NYC, Chicago IFF ect. His new film Agent of Happiness is supported by the Sundance Film Institute, Catapult Film Fund and DMZ Docs Fund among others.
He established his own production company - Sound Pictures - dedicated to creative documentaries in 2015. He is one of the few independent documentary filmmakers in
Bhutan.
Dorottya Zurbó
Dorottya Zurbó (Hungary) premiered her first feature-length documentary The Next Guardian (co-directed by Arun Bhattarai), - an intimate family story set in Bhutan - at IDFA in 2017. Since then, it has been screened at more than 40 international festivals. Parallelly, she worked on her first directorial debut Easy Lessons, a feature-length documentary about a young Somalian refugee girl who tries to adapt to Hungary, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival Critics Week section in 2018. The film participated in more than 40 international festivals, receiving awards such as the Hungarian Critics Award for Best Documentary in 2019. Her new film Agent of Happiness is supported by the Sundance Film Institute, Catapult Film Fund and DMZ Docs Fund among others.
Beside filmmaking she has been teaching at the prestigious DocNomads Joint Master program in Europe.
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