Cinephil has sold Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s feature documentary “Agent of Happiness” to a wide range of key international territories ahead of the film’s Hot Docs debut this weekend.
Deals are confirmed in the U.K. and Ireland (Dogwoof), Germany and Austria (Filmwelt), Australia and New Zealand (Vendetta), Italy (Wanted), Spain and Portugal (Filmin), Poland (Against Gravity), Switzerland (Trigon), Belgium (Vrt), Israel (Lev), the Western Balkans (Beldocs), Hong Kong and Macao (Now TV Hong Kong), and Taiwan (Sky Digi), with North American distribution set to be announced shortly. Hungarian distributor Mozinet will release the film on May 2.
“Agent of Happiness” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews, and went on to several festivals including True/False, Cph:dox, San Francisco, Full Frame and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Co-directed by Bhattarai and Zurbó following their IDFA-selected “The Next Guardian,” “Agent of Happiness” follows Amber, one of the...
Deals are confirmed in the U.K. and Ireland (Dogwoof), Germany and Austria (Filmwelt), Australia and New Zealand (Vendetta), Italy (Wanted), Spain and Portugal (Filmin), Poland (Against Gravity), Switzerland (Trigon), Belgium (Vrt), Israel (Lev), the Western Balkans (Beldocs), Hong Kong and Macao (Now TV Hong Kong), and Taiwan (Sky Digi), with North American distribution set to be announced shortly. Hungarian distributor Mozinet will release the film on May 2.
“Agent of Happiness” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews, and went on to several festivals including True/False, Cph:dox, San Francisco, Full Frame and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Co-directed by Bhattarai and Zurbó following their IDFA-selected “The Next Guardian,” “Agent of Happiness” follows Amber, one of the...
- 4/25/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Tel Aviv-based sales company Cinephil has acquired world rights for feature documentary “Agent of Happiness,” which delves into the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, ahead of its upcoming Sundance Film Festival debut in the World Cinema Documentary competition.
Co-directed by Arun Bhattarai, who is Bhutanese, in tandem with Hungary’s Dorottya Zurbó, “Agent of Happiness” revolves around a 40-year-old man named Amber, who is one of the agents employed by the Bhutanese government to measure its so-called Gross National Happiness level.
In the late 1990s, Bhutan introduced a unique socioeconomic indicator called the Gross National Happiness Index, meant to ensure that economic development doesn’t disrupt traditional lifestyles. Amber, who still lives with his elderly mother, is “nevertheless a hopeless romantic who dreams of finding love: a happiness agent who is in search of his own happiness,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.
In “Agent of Happiness,” the directors embark...
Co-directed by Arun Bhattarai, who is Bhutanese, in tandem with Hungary’s Dorottya Zurbó, “Agent of Happiness” revolves around a 40-year-old man named Amber, who is one of the agents employed by the Bhutanese government to measure its so-called Gross National Happiness level.
In the late 1990s, Bhutan introduced a unique socioeconomic indicator called the Gross National Happiness Index, meant to ensure that economic development doesn’t disrupt traditional lifestyles. Amber, who still lives with his elderly mother, is “nevertheless a hopeless romantic who dreams of finding love: a happiness agent who is in search of his own happiness,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.
In “Agent of Happiness,” the directors embark...
- 1/12/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
This year’s World Cinema Docu Competition sees The Painter and the Thief (2020) filmmaker Benjamin Ree among the pack of ten. Here is the line-up:
Agent of Happiness / Bhutan, Hungary — Amber is one of the many agents working for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness levels among the remote Himalayan mountains. But will he find his own along the way? World Premiere. Available online for Public.
The Battle for Laikipia / Kenya, U.S.A. — Unresolved historical injustices and climate change raise the stakes in a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya, a wildlife conservation haven.…...
Agent of Happiness / Bhutan, Hungary — Amber is one of the many agents working for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness levels among the remote Himalayan mountains. But will he find his own along the way? World Premiere. Available online for Public.
The Battle for Laikipia / Kenya, U.S.A. — Unresolved historical injustices and climate change raise the stakes in a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya, a wildlife conservation haven.…...
- 12/6/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Following the world premiere of “Six Weeks” at Sarajevo Film Festival, about a teenage mother who decides to give her child up for adoption, but still has some time to change her mind, director Noémi Veronika Szakonyi will continue to explore the subject in “Little Ones.” In the documentary, which she will produce, the focus will shift to the complicated workings of international adoption.
“We have been working on it for eight years now; we will shoot for four more,” she says. Her husband and frequent collaborator Máté Vincze will direct.
“I have a subconscious connection to this topic, which I have realized only later. I have been shooting another documentary about my own family, about my mother giving up her child. My brother. I am just interested in that question: how can you give up a child and survive?”
The Hungarian filmmaker already has a slew of new projects,...
“We have been working on it for eight years now; we will shoot for four more,” she says. Her husband and frequent collaborator Máté Vincze will direct.
“I have a subconscious connection to this topic, which I have realized only later. I have been shooting another documentary about my own family, about my mother giving up her child. My brother. I am just interested in that question: how can you give up a child and survive?”
The Hungarian filmmaker already has a slew of new projects,...
- 8/19/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
The Circle Women Doc Accelerator, a training program for female-identifying documentary filmmakers, has selected the four projects that will take part in its showcase as part of the Cannes Docs program of the Cannes Film Market.
“Becoming Ema” by Patricia Drati and produced by Sidsel Lønvig Siersted for Danish outlet Good Company Pictures and Marcel Plazman for Frame Film in Slovakia (Circle 2020) follows a couple who decide to abandon modern city life and start a life deep in the countryside of Mallorca. One year into their dream, the pandemic hits, the man loses his job, and the family is forced to reevaluate their life.
“A Successful Man” (Nem haltam meg) by Asia Dér, produced by Noémi Veronika Szakonyi and Máté Artur Vincze for Match Frame Productions (Hungary), was developed through Circle 2019. When a life loving, successful gallery owner is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 50, he takes it...
“Becoming Ema” by Patricia Drati and produced by Sidsel Lønvig Siersted for Danish outlet Good Company Pictures and Marcel Plazman for Frame Film in Slovakia (Circle 2020) follows a couple who decide to abandon modern city life and start a life deep in the countryside of Mallorca. One year into their dream, the pandemic hits, the man loses his job, and the family is forced to reevaluate their life.
“A Successful Man” (Nem haltam meg) by Asia Dér, produced by Noémi Veronika Szakonyi and Máté Artur Vincze for Match Frame Productions (Hungary), was developed through Circle 2019. When a life loving, successful gallery owner is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 50, he takes it...
- 4/26/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
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