Synopsis
This documentary film by Franziska von Malsen covers the joy and challenges a gay couple face as they navigate the process of adopting a child and welcome a five year-old boy with a story of his own into their family. They’ve been together for the past 13 years, they’re successful professionals and they’ve relocated together from Munich to New York and on to London - now Dario and Markus want to start a family. In Germany, gay couples are not allowed to adopt children. Not so in England. The two men grapple with endless bureaucracy; lifted by hope and plagued by anxiety about what lies ahead. Franziska von Malsen accompanies Dario and Markus through this time of anticipation. 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 and his past.
