if we feel happiness
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Post-production | 27 minutes
Writer, Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Co-Producer
Co-Producer and Translator, Sansitny Ruth
Tonlé Sap River, Cambodia
An impressionistic, intimate, ethnographic film of la vie quotidienne of a family living on the Tonlé Sap river in Cambodia. Reflections and perspectives touching themes ranging from climate change to colonization to globalization to mental distress unfold amidst routines of daily life: moments of banality, delight, and familial affection.
It is part of broader Pulitzer Center-supported documentary work investigating transnational dynamics of global mental health narratives with an intention to steward alternate perspectives, frameworks and approaches. Journalistic and research literatures paint an overwhelmingly bleak picture of mental health in Cambodia. Psychosocial intervention is a primary component of international humanitarian aid, and Euro-American psychiatry conceptualizes mental health in progressively biological terms with increasingly dominant psychopharmacological intervention. Yet, disconnects between imposed external approaches and local understandings can disrupt communities' coping strategies that give context-specific meaning to distress. What are local experiences, interpretations, and priorities, and what efforts have been made to harness this expertise?