If you want to feel energized and happy and feel like a changed person, then the documentary “Wisdom of Happiness” is must-see.
The “Wisdom of Happiness” is executive produced by American actor Richard Gere and Oren Moverman.
The documentary features a personal, heart-to-heart message from the Dalai Lama about compassion (karuna), peace, and the pursuit of happiness while building good relationships in family and the outside world.
The movie was broadcast to all International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) members and was released all over the United States in many different cities on March 16. It was an exclusive online available to ICT supporters across the United States and Canada, featuring a 72-hour streaming, through the Gathr platform.
“So, according to my own experience, training the mind is the key factor for a happy life,” the Dalai Lama said. The film is a playbook for survival against trauma and polarization of the 21 st century.
The special screening was, separate from the broader U.S. theatrical launch that took place in fall 2025. It was first released in Europe in 2024 to packed houses. This was due to interest in Dalai Lama’s message of peace.
The documentary had its world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival on October 8, 2024, before rolling out across Europe and other regions like Germany, Austria, and other European countries starting in late 2024. On Nov. 12, 2024, it premiered at Votiv Kino in Vienna. The documentary was shown at the 78 th Cannes Film Festival in May 2025. It won the 2025 Best Screenplay Award at the Croation International Film Festival and was nominated for the Cinema for Peace Award the same year.
Directed by Barbara Miller and Philip Delaquis, this documentary offers an intimate, personal message from the Dalai Lama and highlights the path to the true essence of happiness. It touched on a wide range of topics including war, climate change, and building harmony in society.
It had highly attended screenings across Europe with box office success and was ranked among the top five documentaries in the German market in 2024, with strong performances in Switzerland and Denmark, according to Deadline. The film continued its international rollout throughout 2025 in countries including Italy, and later Spain and Japan.
The film, which blends intimate interviews with archival material, has been highly praised for its message of compassion, according to Deadline.
At the outset, Dalai Lama recalled how he as a kid used to get angry like his father and how his mother calmed him down and told him to maintain his calm. “I fitted (my) father’s pattern that was short-tempered but later on following up with mother and looking inward and through training I watched negative emotions and anger disappear,” he explained in the documentary.
“Compassion is the key factor. We do not want suffering, but a happy life. Most of the audience felt that they felt peace and left a different person after the movie,” Gere stated in the panel discussion that followed the screening.
The panel discussion, featured Richard Gere, Gabby Bernstein, and Jerome Foster II, and was moderated by NBC journalist Ann Curry. Curry spoke about women’s freedom and Dalai Lama’s views on harmony.
The ICT is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization headed by Tencho Gyatso, Dalai Lama’s niece. Recently, a bill called the Assuring a Future for Tibet Act (AFTA), was just introduced in the House of Representatives, which ICT strongly supports. This will firmly align the United States with Tibet’s continued culture and values. Gere has always supported Tibetan human rights.
In the documentary, the Dalai Lama talks about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and how the world can be a better place to live in.
The documentary focusses on protecting climate change through compassion, planting more trees, and kindness in the context of war, and peace.
Gere reiterated the fact that the audience left happier and much more content after watching the movie.
He explained what made the film unique was the director’s decision to use a technique pioneered by Errol Morris called “the Interrotron which allows the interview subjects and the interviewer to make eye contact with each other while the subject is looking into the lens, creating an intimate first-person connection with the audience. The technique includes a way where teleprompters are used to project an image on a two- way mirror.
“I visualize fear and anger and hatred and give them patience tolerance and compassion, to control fear and anger, Dalai Lama said.
Everyone who comes from their mother has a seed of compassion within them,” he said.
“Inner wisdom is a path to collective shift in our consciousness. Trust comes from compassion,” the Nobel Prize Laureate added.
On the climate aspect, he said “Most rivers come from Tibet, so the whole of Asia is affected by preserving Tibet.”
The monk talked about how we should try to decrease gap between reality and perception. “Our brain must be combined with warmheartedness(karuna),” he said.
“Technology helps life become easier but too much of it can make people desperate and unhappy.,” he advised.
China invaded Tibet when Dalai Lama was 16 years old and there was killing, and torture of Tibetans in Tibet. “I dedicated my body, spirit, and mind to all humanity. People who are content and do not expect much can live in happiness,” he said.
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“We are all equipped with a seed of compassion and can work whole heartedly to live together and restore a sense of community,” he said.
The Dalai Lama recently won his first Grammy Award for Best Audio book Narration and Storytelling Recording for Meditations: The Reflections of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Gere, 76, married Spanish activist Alejandra Silva in 2018 and has two sons with her. He has a son named Homer James Jigme from his second wife actress Carey Lowell. His first wife was actress/model Cindy Crawford.
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