The Happiness Effect

The Art of Happiness

November 2013 •Italian

Sergio driving a taxi in a white Naples overflowing sadness and garbage. Pouring rain leads her clients through the city trying to process the death of his brother, who started ten years earlier for Tibet and never returned. A pop singer, a recycler of fragments of life, a radio announcer, an old uncle, alternate seats on its bearing, each in its own way, a trace of his brother loved. Stubborn not to go over and get lost in an endless race, Sergio is overwhelmed by memories and the music produced in pairs with Alfredo, which in Buddhism and in its foundations had found the strength to cope with the disease. Those notes that he believed buried and laid to always return overbearing and demanding a soundboard that resonate and express his being sound. Putting his hand on the piano, Sergio Alfredo feel again, giving the past with the present and realizing itself in the feeling.

Hector and the Search for Happiness

August 2014 •English

Hector is a quirky psychiatrist who has become increasingly tired of his humdrum life. As he tells his girlfriend, Clara, he feels like a fraud: he hasn’t really tasted life, and yet he’s offering advice to patients who are just not getting any happier. So Hector decides to break out of his deluded and routine driven life. Armed with buckets of courage and child-like curiosity, he embarks on a global quest in hopes of uncovering the elusive secret formula for true happiness. And so begins a larger than life adventure with riotously funny results.

Moscow, Belgium

January 2008 •Dutch

‘Moscou’ is a densely populated working class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Ghent, Belgium. Matty, mother of three, bumps her car into a truck on the parking lot of a supermarket. Johnny climbs down from the cabin. He is infuriated by the dent in his front bumper and yells at Matty. Although impressed by the accident, Matty fights back with sharp words. Their discussion turns into a row, and the police have to intervene. Matty goes home, the trunk of her car dancing up and down. Back in her apartment, Matty takes a hot bath to recover from the afternoon’s emotionswhen the phone rings. It’s Johnny, apologizing for his behaviour on the parking lot. Matty tells him to stay out of her life. A dramatic comedy begins about a woman whose soul is full of dents and bruises.

Letter to the King

January 2014 •Norwegian

In Letter to the King we meet a group of refugees, all with their own agendas, on an excursion to Oslo. A young man about to be deported visits his former employers to collect his off-the-books salary, a martial arts expert is looking for work, a young woman is haunted by the past and out for vengeance and an old man named Mirza is busy writing a letter to the king to get his final wish granted. An altogether urgent and nuanced portrait of a motley group of individuals, too often regarded as a homogeneous group.

Pollyanna

May 1960 •English

A young girl comes to an embittered town and confronts its attitude with her determination to see the best in life.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

February 1980 •Russian

This is a life story of three girlfriends from youth to autumn ages. Their dreams and wishes, love, disillusions...

Outer Edge

January 2018 •Portuguese

Fragments of an endless night, Robert and Teresa meet and get to know each other, and get separate by the force of oppression and the threat of death and disappearance that continually creeps in.

Mabidi Wa Strata

February 2024 •English

A charming yet mischievous man who navigates his community by scamming people and borrowing money. Despite his deceitful ways, Mabidi tries to maintain a semblance of normalcy at home, where he faces his no-nonsense wife, Maria.

Listen, Darling

October 1938 •English

To stop Pinkie's widowed, struggling mother Dottie from marrying a well-off older man they know she doesn't love, teenager Pinkie and her best friend Buzz kidnap her in the family travel trailer to live a carefree life on the open road. They then get the idea to find Dottie a financially secure husband whom both she and Pinkie would like.

The Blue Bird

March 1918 •English

Peasant children Mytyl and Tyltyl are led on a magical quest for the fabulous Blue Bird of Happiness by the fairy Berylune. On their journey, they're accompanied by the anthropomorphized presences of a Dog, a Cat, Light, Fire, and Bread, among other entities.

Daddy's Got Moves

May 2019 •Hindi

An under-appreciated father, living a humdrum middle-class life, is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight—and soon he is regarded as never before.

Between Us

September 2012 •English

A New York couple and their Midwestern friends find that drastic changes have occurred in their respective lives since they last met.

Nevěrné hry

May 2003 •Czech

Beautiful Brooke

March 2016 •English

Unable to maintain a healthy, faithful relationship, twenty-five year old Brooke Miller sets out on a journey to find out why she cannot stop deceiving those closest to her.

Una simple y ambiciosa historia desde el interior de una ventana

April 2020 •Spanish

A journey to the past inspired by nostalgia, the basis of happiness. A simple and ambitious story from the inside of a window establishes the delicate boundaries between the past, the present and the future. Produced during 2020's confinement due to Covid-19.

We Move

September 2024 •English

Faced with ever-growing obstacles, we force ourselves to compartmentalise and persevere; "We Move". What is the collateral damage of always having to put on a brave face?

A Story of Yonosuke

February 2013 •Japanese

The year is 1987 and Japan is just reaching the peak of its economic success. Eighteen-year old Yonosuke Yokomichi arrives in Tokyo from Nagasaki. Ordinary in every way possible, he lives in a suburb far from the excitement of the big city and commutes to a university in the center of Tokyo.

The Racket Boys

January 2013 •English

The Racket Boys is a modern comedy about two men and a woman driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco for individual reasons, but the same goal -- finding happiness and a reason for it all. A simple story of friends on the road, searching for meaning in an indifferent existence

Moonflower

April 2021 •English

A woman struggles with grief

La dictature du bonheur

February 2019 •French

The pursuit of happiness (and the display of happiness on social media!) has become a veritable cult. Happiness has become a social imperative, just like slimness, beauty and success. To better understand this obsessive quest for happiness, journalist Marie-Claude Élie-Morin takes an in-depth and personal look into this seemingly pervasive trend that sometimes leads to painful consequences.