Amber, a happiness agent, travels the Bhutanese Himalayas surveying people's happiness. On his remote mountain journey, | dG1fQlpndzROLWtwb1U
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Dorottya Zurbo from Hungary, one of the directors of Agent of Happiness, that
00:10will be premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival at the World Cinema Documentary Competition.
00:16Hi, I'm Arun Bhattrai from Bhutan, the other director of the film.
00:20Me and Dorottya have been creative partners for about 10 years now.
00:24We studied together and even made our first feature documentary in Bhutan.
00:28Through our unique collaboration, we have grown as directors, sharing a common cinematic
00:33vision that was shaped by our different cultural backgrounds.
00:37And the result of that is our new film.
00:40Our film is taking place in Bhutan, a small country in the Himalayas, where government
00:44agents are going door to door to measure the happiness index of the society.
00:49They collect this data to create development plans and policies focusing on human well-being
00:55over material wealth.
00:58This holistic idea of measuring contentment gave us the inspiration to look behind the
01:02survey statistics and give a deeper insight into the mind and soul of Bhutanese people
01:08in a country where happiness is high on the official agenda.
01:11We wanted to capture the real emotions and feelings of people behind those numbers to
01:17give voice to their tender honesty, genuine wisdom and open hearts.
01:22Our film is a bittersweet road movie where we follow Amber, one of the happiness agents
01:26who turns out to be rather unhappy because he cannot fulfil his greatest dream to find love.
01:32We follow him through his official survey trips and meet people from all walks of life.
01:37The stories of the locals he encounters on the road resonate with his own search for happiness.
01:44They are a mirror for all of us, reminding us of the fragility and beauty of our own
01:48happiness no matter where we come from.
01:52We can't wait to share this film with you.