Happy Serious Sad
Director Franziska von Malsen
Countries Germany
Duration 62 min
Synopsis
They’ve been in a steady relationship for the past 13 years; they’re successful professionals and they’ve relocated together from Munich to London − now Dario and Markus want to start a family. In Germany, homosexual couples are not allowed to adopt children. Not so in England. The two men go through a period of endless encounters with bureaucracy; a period of being lifted by hope and plagued by anxiety about what lies ahead. Franziska von Malsen accompanies Dario and Markus through this time of waiting. She portrays the lives of a couple about to become parents − not, in the end, of a baby, but of a five year-old boy with a story of his own. HAPPY SERIOUS SAD relates how Dario and Markus gradually, sensitively come to embrace their son Jacob and his past.
They’ve been in a steady relationship for the past 13 years; they’re successful professionals and they’ve relocated together from Munich to London − now Dario and Markus want to start a family. In Germany, homosexual couples are not allowed to adopt children. Not so in England. The two men go through a period of endless encounters with bureaucracy; a period of being lifted by hope and plagued by anxiety about what lies ahead. Franziska von Malsen accompanies Dario and Markus through this time of waiting. She portrays the lives of a couple about to become parents − not, in the end, of a baby, but of a five year-old boy with a story of his own. HAPPY SERIOUS SAD relates how Dario and Markus gradually, sensitively come to embrace their son Jacob and his past.