happiness

Fırat Yücel
Netherlands, Turkey | 2025 | 18 min
World premiere
Languages : English, Dutch, Turkish, Arabic, Serbian
Subtitles : English, French

Sleeping disorders are omnipresent in this day and age. This desktop-diary chronicles the sleepless nights of a group of activists and immigrants in Amsterdam, absorbed by the genocides and atrocities being broadcast in real time. They are looking for solutions to cut down their screen time. But then, a particular anxiety takes hold: What in the world will happen while they are offline?

In Happiness, an anonymous person living in Amsterdam is unable to sleep. Online, they are consumed by the unfolding events in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, haunted by the world’s complicity in genocidal crimes broadcast live across social media. Their screen time spirals, deepening their insomnia. With their only moments of respite coming from pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Amsterdam Central Station, they begin searching for ways to fall asleep again. Wherever they look, well-meaning advice for coping with the world’s macabre downward spiral abounds: exercise, diet, melatonin, 5-HTP. But every suggestion for a digital detox rings hollow, part of a larger hypocrisy in which the pursuit of one person’s happiness—however relative—seems to come at the cost of another’s. In this desktop diary, Fırat Yücel poignantly captures the sense of meaninglessness felt by many of our lucid, hyper-connected contemporaries.

Aurélien Marsais

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