The HappyHap Project

Sunnie, Christian, Vela and Brittany, four HappyHap Project team members, went to see Happy at the Mountainfilm On Tour Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York City on October 22nd. After the screening we had the opportunity to interview the film director of Happy, Roko Belic, about his inspiring feature documentary that deals with many of the fundamental issues we face in today’s society related to the art and science behind happiness.

From left to right: Brittany, Roko Belic, Christian, Sunnie

Sunnie: What motivated you to make the documentary “Happy”? 

Roko: Happy was inspired by a phone call that I got from a good friend, Tom Shadyac who suggested we should make it. Tom is a renowned Hollywood filmmaker who directed The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, and I Am. He had seen an article in the New York Times that morning which ranked countries by the happiness of their citizens. What Tom learned from this article is that despite the fact that America is one of the richest countries in the world, it’s nowhere near the happiest. He had some insight into that paradox because he had made a lot of money and was surrounded by people who had even more money, but many of them weren’t happy. He was living the Beverly Hills lifestyle: a mansion on 7 acres, with 30 people working for him as gardeners, chefs…. Many of his peers were living even more elaborate lifestyles. But many of them he thought were less happy than his gardener and his housekeeper, who had genuine smiles every morning. People who had achieved the extreme version of the American dream weren’t made happy by it. So he had a sense of what doesn’t make you happy, but wanted to explore the true causes of happiness. He said I don’t know how to make documentaries, but you do. He was so compelled to find answers that he offered to fund the majority of Happy out of his own pocket. It was a bold gesture that doesn’t happen very often in our culture. He said to me I’m going to empower you to find answers that are true. Whatever agenda I have is totally irrelevant. Have 100 percent integrity and make it happen. 

Sunnie: After this initial phone call, how did you go about capturing a topic as broad and multi-facetted as “happiness”?

Roko: Very early on, I discovered that there was a whole field of research within psychology that focussed on happiness, so one of the first things I did, was to order a bunch of books about positive psychology. From there, I decided to interview some of the authors and main researchers that I had read about. But I didn’t just want to make a documentary about research. For a movie to be powerful and make an impact on the viewer, it has to be personal and emotional, too. And emotions are impacted by people and their stories, not by research and opinions. Any image, sound, or bit of dialogue is there to add to the emotional experience. So I set out to find narratives that would illustrate the research findings. And since Americans are not the only ones who’ve developed ideas about how to be happy, we set out to collect personal stories from around the world. 

On our journey, we were invited to join Prof. Robert Biswas-Diener in the slums of Kolkata, India where he was conducting a study on happiness. One day he notified us about this guy who was apparently just as happy as the average American. Of course, we had to meet him and his story would later become the first narrative for our documentary. 

Another time, a friend of mine said you have to meet this guy who’s writing a book on optimism. When this author was in San Francisco, we met and had an amazing conversation. After lunch, he invited me to sit in on an interview he was doing for his book. For the next two hours, I heard Melissa Moody tell her story about being run over by a truck…..

Then sometimes it’d be that I’d have a specific question on my end: For example, what made us happy before the digital age? To find an answer, we decided to go somewhere they don’t have all of this, which led us to the indigenous people in Namibia. 

Sunnie: What was the biggest challenge when making Happy? 

Roko: Editing 400+ hours of footage is a big challenge because you need to put it in an order such that it builds to a cinematographic experience. 

Sunnie: Happy - The movie. The Movement. Can you say more about the movement?

Roko: It’s a movement comprised of people from all walks of life who recognize that we can all lead better, healthier, more fulfilled and more sustainable lives if we focus on what really matters to us. The movement is carried by business people, artists, students, journalists, parents and everyone who wants to consciously improve their own happiness and the happiness of their family, community and the world. 

Sunnie: What’s the role of young people in this movement?

Roko: In general, young people are more open towards new ideas than older people. For the Happy Movement this means that young people should use their energy, their values, their vision and their creativity to create the kind of world that they want to raise their children in one day. 

Sunnie: You mentioned previously the idea of focusing on what really matters. I think especially for young people it is sometimes hard to figure out what the most important things in life really are. Any words of advice after having worked on “Happy” since 2005? 

Roko: To make space for what really matters, you need to first question the pressure points that your peers, your family and society at large impose on you. With pressure points I mean things like picking the job that gives you security, a solid level of comfort, status and a big paycheck at the end of the month. Once you deprioritze these things and you shed the pressure, a whole new world of opportunity opens up; opportunities that let you listen for the truth of what makes you feel alive. It is key to put yourself in a position where you can pursue things that you suspect will bring you joy, even if they seem risky. Because the only way to definitely fail at your dreams is to not try in the first place. 

When I started shooting my first real film, I was 23 and fresh out of college. It took me four years to complete it and then in 1999 Genghis Blues was nominated for an academy award. But during those first four years many people thought I was taking on too much risk, kept on asking me when it would be finished and expected me to move on. Looking back today, I know that once you have a hunch of what it is that you love doing, you should look for a way to do this activity for the rest of your life. Maybe you love sculpting, helping other people or dog walking, it doesn’t even have to be something that seems important to you at first. But as Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Outliers” clearly shows, the key ingredient for extraordinarily successful people is that they love doing what they do. From my own life story, the many travels and the people I’ve met, I know that those people who have a lifestyle that closely reflects their personal values, are consistently the healthiest and happiest individuals. And what’s more, research shows that happy people tend to be good people. People who care about each other, who are willing to help a stranger, who are creative, inspired, feel a part of something bigger. They are less likely to go to war, less likely to pollute the environment…. All the things I’m bummed out by are directly related to somebody’s happiness. Unhappy people make a miserable world. Happy people make a happy world. So nurturing your happiness and finding ways to pursue your passion is not only important for yourself. Your happiness is important for all of us. 

For more information about the feature documentary “Happy” and its screening dates, check their website. To stay in touch with updates, sign up for their newsletter on their homepage and like their facebook page.