Can we pinpoint what happiness is? Is it a feeling? Is it an emotion? Is it a state of being, a way of life? Do we even know or decide what makes us happy?

Pam McCracken of the Colorado State University has an answer: “Happiness is defined by the individual. I think there are different meanings for each person to choose what that might be for them and I think it’s a really hard term to give a definition to.”

So a group of curious filmmakers set off across the world, travelling to different countries to ask people what happiness means to them, and what it means to be happy in the modern age. Covering Spain, Ghana, India, South Africa, Myanmar, China, Japan and Vietnam, their short documentary (above) gathers the factors that contribute towards happiness and how different cultures perceive it.

Naturally, there is no one answer. But one thing seems clear. Happiness surpasses emotion, it feeds and nourishes our bodies, minds and souls and, as the narrator puts it, “Happiness has only begun and it never ends.”