Máté Artur Vincze

The documentary team follows two happiness agents in their forties who spend a month and a half on the road twice a year, going door-to-door with their questionnaires in isolated villages in the Himalayas. The filmmakers undertake to provide an intimate insight into the daily lives and desires of Bhutanese people, and also seek the answer to the universal question of whether happiness can really be measured. Gross National Happiness promises a heart-warming journey into a mysterious, fairytale-like world, which is the exact opposite of the social order dominated by consumption and desires.

Zsófi, a rebellious teenager, lives in a tiny flat with her little sister, Mesi, and her unstable mother, Bea. Zsófi discovers late that she is pregnant and decides to give up her baby through open adoption to an infertile couple. Bea cannot accept her daughter’s decision, but she does not realize that neither Zsófi, nor the circumstances, are suitable to welcome a newborn. Zsófi has always had to behave like a grown-up, working and making sensible decisions, instead of her mother and for her sister. She is still in high school and her only advantage is her table tennis career, for which she works assiduously. She plans the adoption thoroughly with the help of a social worker. Following the birth, she is given six weeks by law to change her mind and ask for her child back. She seems to be able to control her feelings ruthlessly and continue towards the goals she has set. At the same time, her maternal feelings intensify, doubts arise, and she slowly begins to question her decisions.

Gabor is a successful, life-loving gallery owner, part of the artistic high society of Budapest. He is always busy, surrounded by many people, constantly marching towards higher and higher goals. One day his seemingly perfect life is shaken by a hurtful breakup and the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Searching for a connection with her mysterious, austere grandfather, Ora DeKornfeld travels to his childhood home in Hungary, where she is swept up in nothing short of a fairytale. The childhood home turns out to be a castle on a 6,000-acre estate. Her grandfather was a baron, and their family was central to the economic and cultural lifeblood of the local community. Suddenly, Ora finds herself ushered through town, meeting curious locals at every corner who greet her with warm hospitality. A question emerges: why would her family leave all this behind? The town, like her grandfather, holds its painful history at arm’s length. Moving between fable and reckoning, whimsy and grief, this deeply personal film explores an identity shaped equally by what was lost and buried and what was lovingly preserved.