Wake Up, Arezoo!
Bidar show, Arezoo! (2005)

Just after the Bam earthquake of December 2003, a woman, Reyhaneh, emerges screaming from the rubble of her house, thinking that no-one else in there has survived.

Meanwhile, the quake has broken open a nearby prison and a prisoner rushes home to find that his wife and mother have been killed.

Moments after the earthquake, a young teacher in a village outside the town of Bam, scrambles from under the rubble and finds out that her colleagues has died in the quake.

She sets out for the town of Bam to get rescue aid for the villagers, but to her amazement, she discovers that the main tragedy has occurred there.



Cries of help are heard from every side and the hospital is filled with the injured and the dead. On the recommendation of a cleric, she goes to the mortuary to help with the washing of the dead bodies of women.

A prisoner, who managed to get out after the prison building is destroyed asks the teacher to wash the bodies of his dead mother, wife and child. —IMDb


Asia Pacific Film
Published on Feb 17, 2010
(Film from Iran)

Director Kianoush Ayari's story of human tragedy and survival begins with a devastating earthquake that hits a town and nearby village without warning. He works with only two professional actors and some survivors of the December 26, 2003 earthquake that devastated the 2,000-year-old southern Iranian city of Bam, leaving 43,000 dead, 20,000 injured and 60,000 homeless.

His drama, working with documentary immediacy, recreates all the horror and loss and confusion, and also the extraordinary courage, compassion and self-sacrifice that surface at the time of a natural disaster. A woman finds herself a lone survivor of her village, and moves toward Bam.

Of the many inhabitants there who are scrambling to extract their friends and loved ones from the rubble, one man whom the quake has released from the confines of his prison cell tries to locate his now unrecognizable house to find his wife, mother, and daughter Arezoo. Like so many other survivors, he must face the terrible possibility that his family is gone. Both dazed, woman teacher and agonized prisoner turn to the work of rescue and recovery.

Cast: Behnaz Jafari, Mahdi Jafari, Ehsan Rezvani, Sahar Salari, Zaynab Zamani, Mehran Rajabi, Mohammad Hossein Akbari

Original title: Bidar show, Arezoo!
Year: 2005
Running time: 90 min.
Country: Iran
Director: Kianoush Ayari
Screenwriter: Kianoush Ayari
Music: Omid Raiesdana
Cinematography: Mansour Azargol
Genre: Drama | Natural Disasters

London (World Cinema)