HIGHER 15

Director Ameha Molla learns the untold story of his uncle Kiflu, a revolutionary who fought against Ethiopia’s brutal Derg regime in the 1970s. Kiflu was imprisoned and tortured at the infamous Higher 15 prison in Addis Ababa, but he ultimately escapes. He is smuggled into the United States where he begins a new life in the Denver suburbs, working at the U.S. Postal Service and raising a family. Thirty-three years after his arrival, he comes face to face with the prison guard who had tortured him and others decades earlier. Ameha discovers his uncle’s story in a Denver Post article which reveals that Kiflu was the lead witness in a federal investigation against this guard, a suspected former war criminal from Addis Ababa who killed over 200 people.

Ameha investigates his family’s past as they fled from war and violence, unearthing the real reason behind their immigration and their anguish at being unable to return. He grapples with the impact of this legacy on the next generation, in light of his own experience growing up as an Ethiopian-American in suburban Denver.

Higher 15 blends poignant interviews with both personal and historical footage. The film centers a family coming to terms with their past, as they release the secrets which have kept them from truly knowing each other for so long.