Director Kianoosh 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.