‘You know, hyenas aren’t the bad ones… These days it’s humans you should fear.’

Asalif and his mother defy the newly-built housing estate which is like all the other ones springing up all over Ethiopia and continue their life within the traditional village community: grazing their animals, tending their gardens and picking fruit off the trees. Asalif’s hut lacks electricity, but the windows of the surrounding high-rises outshine the moon at night. Asalif scours the new city’s streets for electro-junk and builds a spaceship with an engine. His mother recounts ancient legends. Real estate developers buy up more land. Asalif feels increasingly threatened, stalked by the invisible hyena that haunts the area. With a sensitive grasp of her protagonist’s emotional reality, the documentary filmmaker and camerawoman Mo Scarpelli traces Asalif’s transformation into Anbessa, the lion.