ACCORDING to a survey by the London School of Economics a few years ago, the happiest people in the world live in Bangladesh. Out of curiosity German writer Sybille Berg travelled to Bangladesh in search of happiness and described her findings in an open letter to the professor of the British survey in the Zeit Magazine as "hell".

These contradictory opinions triggered Berlin-based Bangladeshi filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz to make a trip to Dhaka to get the real picture. Dill-Riaz's documentary Shilpo Shohor Swapnolok: The Happiest People in the World (a German production) tries to unravel the universal conundrum -- Is anyone truly "happy"?

Dill-Riaz records informal conversations with individuals living in Dhaka -- from different social backgrounds, with distinctly disparate aspirations. The characters are quite colourful and evidently multi-layered. Hassan, a close friend of the filmmaker, is the eternal leftist and film activist whose ideals and hopes were crushed with the disintegration of the former Soviet union. Russell, now a teenager, has had his 15 minutes of fame when his performance as Rokon was highly acclaimed in Tarque Masud's

film Matir Moina. Living in a shanty with his family, Russel makes his living as a rickshaw puller. Jaded at an early age by the harsh surroundings, Russel has not given up hope of becoming a professional actor.

Kutti, a former domestic help, now works in a textile factory. Cramped up in a single room with four roommates, Kutti does not want to get married. She is trying to save money; her dream -- setting up a small grocery store of her own. Milli, Dill Riaz's aunt, is a well-off middle-aged woman balancing her time between London and Dhaka. She is the only character in the film who is seemingly happy but beneath that bright and breezy veneer is a woman exploited and let down by her near and dear ones.

These characters open up as the film moves ahead, from their conversations certain aspects of our society become apparent: individuals from middle-class families are still expected to go with mundane nine to five jobs and not encouraged to take up challenging professions like documentary or alternative filmmaking which has no commercial prospect in our country, people often take the underprivileged for granted -- rickshaw pullers cannot do much even if they are underpaid and neither can domestic help or workers in the garments indus-

try, women face exploitation and abuse in all classes of the society -- the methods may vary.

unintentional dramatic developments like a death, gives the film a certain touch that is characteristic in the docu-fiction genre. Dill-Riaz does not offer the audience a sermon or an opinion on a platter. "Happiness" will still be elusive once you're done watching the film. The differences between "being happy" and "being content" are often misread and there is no "heaven" or "hell" on earth.

Quality of sound editing is perhaps the most noticeable technical aspect of the film. According to Dill-Riaz, it took the talented team of Md Abdus Sattar, Ripon Nath and Michael Andreas in charge of sound recording and mixing, months to wrap up the work.

The film has been screened at international festivals including Film Fest Hamburg 2005 (Hamburg, Germany), Festival do Rio 2005 (Rio do Janeiro, Brazil), Film South Asia 2005 (Kathmandu, Nepal), Les Recontres International des Documentaires du Montreal 2005 (Montreal, Canada), Dhaka International Film Festival 2005 (Dhaka, Bangladesh), Independent Film Festival Rome 2005 (Rome, Italy) and Beeld Voor Beeld Film Festival 2006 (Amsterdam, Netherlands).

Dill-Riaz's previous documentary -- Jibon Jole-Bele / Sand and Water (jointly produced by RBB and HFF-Film School) illustrates the struggle for existence of people living in the Jamuna char areas -- was highly acclaimed at international festivals as well. His latest project Ironeaters (a French-German-Belgian production) brings to light ship-breakers working at the docks in Bangladesh. The film is yet to be released.