Two weeks after the tsunami claimed many lives and destroyed several coastal villages in different parts of Asia, one Dubai-based filmmaker went to Sri Lanka looking for a tale of hope amidst the destruction that the sea had wreaked on December 26, 2004. Now, 10 months later, Dhruv Dhawan’s From Dust, a 52-minute documentary, shot on 16mm and DV, is being readied for a possible premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival, which will be held in December this year. “From Dust is an attempt to move beyond the morbid images of death and despair that the media has bombarded us with and to look at how people stood up against this calamity and started to rebuild their lives from nothing,” says Dhawan. “I witnessed great resilience among people who were struggling to keep their heads above water after the Tsunami and also struggling against the forces of corruption and greed in the country,” he adds. The documentary primarily focuses on three people — Ravi, an entrepreneur who lost his father, sister, business and home to the wave that crashed through Galle, a large town on Sri Lanka’s south coast; Siril, a young fisherman disabled in one arm, who saved his wife and son from the waters that submerged the village of Kogala; and Cameron, an Australian acupuncturist who flew to the aid of the people of Kogala.