David Barnhart was visiting an Indonesian village when he got his first blast of clarity.
Shortly after the devastating tsunami of 2004, the Atlanta native and documentarian was hired by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to chronicle the tragedy. He stood amid the rubble and loss to begin production of what would become the feature-length documentary "Kepulihan: Stories From the Tsunami."
Then he began to notice the absence of women and children. He asked a community leader about it. He was told that when the tsunami hit, many of the men in that particular village were out fishing. Out of 94 households, 90 female heads of the household were killed.
"You have those moments when you don't know the context of where you are very well and you're starting to learn," Barnhart said. "And then all of a sudden, something happens and you get this flash that puts it in perspective."
It was then, Barnhart said, he got the idea of the film's purpose: to help humanize the tsunami by telling personal stories of survival and recovery, and having the subjects involved.
More than 230,000 people in eight countries were killed as a result of the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami. An undersea quake sent a massive amount of water crashing upon the shores bordering the Indian Ocean.
But Barnhart didn't want to just tell the story of the tsunami. He wanted to use filmmaking as a way to help the survivors heal, enrich and empower their communities and bring awareness to others.
For four years, Barnhart followed four survivors. After wading through hours of footage and mounds of translation transcripts, Barnhart began finding the film's voice by immersing into the realities of Mahmud the fisherman and others. Barnhart said he forged a bond with the four survivors.
"What I've taken from this project is how important those relationships are and how they need to come first," he said. "I think so often, you look at reality TV and media in general, and people use it to exploit and to sell. And I think you can really leverage the power of story to survivors in a way that enables them to heal and to work through the process of recovery."
Movie preview
"Kepulihan: Stories From the Tsunami"
8 p.m. Saturday. Free. Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site Visitor Center Theatre, 450 Auburn Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-331-5190. www.nps.gov/malu.
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