The Happy Film

By all metrics, Austrian designer Stefan Sagmeister is doing well. He has a successful career designing album covers and lives in New York, the city of his dreams. But Sagmeister has a nagging suspicion that there’s more to life, that in his nearly 50 years on Earth he has yet to reach true happiness.

So he turns himself into his most audacious design project yet in an effort to test the ability of humans to become better and happier. He sets out to explore the effects of meditation, therapy and drugs on his emotional wellness. But his experiment is muddied by real life when love, death, relationships and art tangle the process.

This visually stunning film by Sagmeister and Ben Nabors not only chronicles a fascinating and relatable journey of seeking, but also allows the audience a front-row seat inside the innovative, inspired and wildly imaginative mind of Sagmeister. It’s a place well worth hanging out in.