Anna Turner- When a City Falls | Canterbury Opinion | Local Voices from Canterbury, New Zealand

As the lights dimmed in the movie theatre I felt an anxious knot tighten in my stomach.  

I was at the premiere of the Christchurch earthquake documentary When a City Falls with my good friend, Emily, and about 200 other nervous Cantabrians.  

I didn't know what to expect. I wasn't sure if I was ready to re-watch some of the horrific scenes from February on the big screen, less than nine months after they happened.  

If I was feeling apprehensive, I couldn't imagine what was going through the head of Emily - a reporter at CTV.   

Emily was out working on a story when the quake hit, a fact which saved her life. For her, the footage was even more real; the bodies being pulled from the wreckage were her workmates and friends.   

I gave her arm a squeeze as the movie began.  

It wasn't quite what I was expecting. I cried - that was expected. But I also laughed. It wasn't just doom and gloom and scenes of terror, it also showed our city's resilience and was, in a way, uplifting.  

The audience was mostly silent throughout the movie; it wasn't the sort of film during which you whisper or munch down on popcorn. Everyone seemed to be quietly reflecting on their own memories.  

And that's what I think the film is great for - it's a moving, raw look at everything that's happened to our city since September 4.  

It isn't a sensationalised Hollywood blockbuster. It simply showed what has happened. In the years to come I'm sure it will become a powerful record of everything our city has been through.  

But there was one part of the film that made it particularly heartbreaking for me personally.   

The movie was dedicated to my friend Rhys Brookbanks, who had worked on the earthquake documentary after September's quake.  

Rhys, the joker of our journalism class, was killed in the CTV building's collapse. He had started working at CTV just weeks before the February quake. In fact, he was recommended for the job off the back of work he had done on When a City Falls.  

The last time I saw Rhys he was just about to start working at CTV, and was very excited at the prospect. We talked about having after-work drinks every Friday - him, me, Emily.  

Instead, less than a year later, here were two of us watching a film he worked on, about the tragedy that claimed his life.   

Life is so unfair sometimes.   

Leaving the theatre, I felt incredibly lucky to have Emily alive and well next me.  

But I'm sure both of us felt the presence of an empty seat in the theatre that should have been Rhys'.  

And I know we both shed a tear for him in the dark.