Single-channel digital video, sound, color, 34:17 minutes.
To Be a Happy Person is a video about the afterlife in western culture and faiths, a speculation about the inevitable part of life that is death.
“My father's demise has slowly begun. He was once a big dynamic man and he’s now a bag of bones and rage. It’s difficult to be by his side, to be of help for him. He’s haunted by a feeling of injustice, as if death were a punishment for something he did not commit. As if death were everyone’s concern but not his.I’d like to talk to him about it, but I lack the courage, I’m afraid to hurt him. So I address my question outside. What is death? What is this natural occurrence that we tend to be in denial about and whose certainty is, with no distinction, everyone’s concern? Can we learn how to die? Is it a form of art or a form of knowledge? Socrates said that philosophy is a long preparation for death. But how do we laymen get ourselves ready for this inevitable encounter?”
With the contribution of: Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University
Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosopher and ethicist
Eli Cuomo, religion student and aspiring chaplain
Rav Joseph Levi, former chief rabbi of Florence and psychologist
Mons. Armando Matteo, theologist and secretary of Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
Stefania Gangemi, psychic medium
