Global Science Film Festival: Happy Pills

International feature films, documentaries and short films combine current global developments with scientific debates.

A journey through six different countries and characters into a world where chemistry is the ultimate response to human pursuits of well-being. From antidepressants to opioid pain or stimulant medication, the film questions our consumer society and the so called Eldorado of prescribed happiness.
It is not an investigative documentary but rather a modern fable. What is there in common between a farmer in Niger who takes painkillers to keep on ploughing and a teenage girl in Massachusetts to whom the parents administer her dose of ADHD drug so that she can concentrate in class? The universal obsession with performance, the irrepressible desire to continue to function socially and, therefore, faith in molecules.

Podium discussion: Is it possible to put happiness in a pill?
Paolo Woods, Director and Writer
Prof. Dr. Jens Gaab, University of Basel
Prof. Dr. Undine Lang, University Psychiatric Clinics Basel
Moderator: tba

Festival program
11:30: SRF Einstein: Expedition Deep Into the Glacier (Documentary, 39 min) + short films, followed by a podium discussion
16:30: The Invisible Extinction (Documentary, 80 min) + short film, followed by a podium discussion
18:30: Happy Pills (Documentary, 84 min) + short film, followed by a podium discussion 

Tickets are on sale at https://eventfrog.ch/en/p/festivals/film/global-science-film-festival-onsite-screening-basel-7030851378894227875.html