Actor Bruce Dern will be seen sharing screen space with Nepali cinema stalwarts Dayahang Rai and Hari Bansha Acharya in Binod Paudel’s 'The World’s Happiest Man'. The film delves into the plight of Bhutanese-Nepali refugees who settled in the Ohio-Pennsylvania area and fought alienation and displacement, reports Variety. Paudel’s Bulbul was chosen as Nepal’s entry in the Oscars’ international category in 2019. He won best director at Nepal’s National Film Awards, where he had previously won the screenplay award for Saanghuro (2013).
Rai headlined A Road to a Village, which bowed in Toronto in 2023 and went on to play at Busan and Mumbai. He also stars in The Sky is Mine. Acharya starred in Mahapurush, which was Nepal’s highest-grossing film of 2022. The World’s Happiest Man participated in the 2019 Busan Asian Project Market under the title ‘Akron International’.
Dern has been Oscar-nominated twice, for Coming Home (1979) and Nebraska (2013), for which he won best actor at Cannes. “For me, it’s all about family and how they come together or fall apart. In this story, a family is separated by geography and culture. It’s a film that reflects my split soul between countries,” Paudel told Variety.
He added: “Nepal has a burgeoning film industry, and this is an opportunity for us to bridge Nepal and the US. It’s an honour for us to be working with a luminary like Bruce. This is a film about longing for a homeland that no longer exists.” The World’s Happiest Man is shooting on location in Akron, Ohio and surrounding towns.