HIGHER 15 is the deeply personal story about the secrets one family was forced to keep as a result of their experiences during Ethiopia’s period of government sponsored genocide in the 1970’s. Director Ameha Molla’s investigation into his family’s past is ignited by his uncle Kiflu, a idealist revolutionary fighting against this brutal regime, who is imprisoned and tortured at the notoriously dangerous Higher 15 prison in Addis Ababa. Kiflu ultimately escapes and is smuggled into the United States. Far from his past in Ethiopia, Kiflu settles into a new life in the suburbs of Denver, working at the US postal service and raising a family – until one day, 33 years after his arrival in America, he comes face to face with the same prison guard who tortured him, and others decades earlier. This deeply buried secret opens up new questions about the family’s experiences in Ethiopia as survivors of war and violence, and the legacy of trauma. As Ameha investigates his family’s past, he also embarks on a hunt to access the prison guard – now in prison himself outside of Denver.
