Over 250,000 people died on December 26th, 2004 in the Asian Tsunami. Bill Malone should have been one of one of them, caught up in the wave he miraculously survived.
Initally, he assumed his beloved wife Elke had been killed by the same wave but shortly thereafter, Bill found Elke clinging to a lower branch on the same tree that had saved his life.
‘Return To Tsunami’ documents his return – together with Elke – to Khao Lak, Thailand, where over 4,000 people lost their lives that day. One of their missions was to repay the doctor who had lent them money to leave the island. They revisit the now decimated bungalow where they stayed – and collect some of their most personal belongings still lying in the sand and debris.
This is an honest and often harrowing eye-witness account of one of the most devastating events in human history.
‘Return to Tsunami’ won the Audience Award for ‘Best Irish Short Documentary’ at the Stranger Than Fiction Documentary Film Festival, in 2005.
34-year-old, Bill Malone is the producer of RTÉ’s The Late Late Show. ‘Return to Tsunami’ is his first documentary.