TODAY/The ECONOMICS of HAPPINESS Fri. March 11 7pm at the

From: ISEC:

We're amazed at the response to the North American launch of The Economics of Happiness

At the U.S. premiere in Seattle, Washington, 350 people crowded into the Town Hall – as many as the hall could hold - despite an impending snow-storm that could have cancelled the event.

At the Berkeley, California, launch, people queued up around the block, and we filled not only the main theater but an “overflow” room as well. We immediately arranged a second screening in San Francisco a few nights later, which also sold out.

In Portland, Oregon, we packed a venue to capacity that held 850 – the organizers said that they had never seen that kind of response to an event there before.

In Toronto, Ontario, without much publicity, again the auditorium was filled to capacity.

And in New York City, a series of snowstorms had all but paralyzed the city in the days leading up to our launch at the Great Hall at Cooper Union. The day of the screening, Cooper Union announced it was shutting down because of the snow, then later announced that the Great Hall would remain open for the screening. Despite it all, more than 600 showed up.

With the North American launch a wonderful success, the film then moved on to Europe, with packed houses in Ireland, Norway and England.

The film is reaching beyond "the choir." At every screening, response to the film was enthusiastically positive. Even at the Siskiyou Film Festival in Grants Pass, Oregon – where no one had heard of the film before the screening – the organizers decided to do a second run because, in their words, “it was, to say the least, a hit.”

Coming up are launches in New Delhi, Bangkok, and Tokyo, followed by a screening at the Green Film Festival in Seoul, South Korea.