Shin Dong-Hyuk was 14 when he heard his mother and his brother plotting their escape from the North Korean prison camp that was the only home he’d ever known.

He had been constantly warned that his role was to work hard and obey orders. One of the orders was to report any family members or friends who were planning to do something against the rules. So he told his teacher about the escape plan.

The outcome: He was forced to witness the public execution of his mother and brother.

All this is recalled in Camp 14: Total Control Zone, a haunting and unmissable documentary feature to be screened at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of the Human Rights Watch film festival.

It’s the scariest movie about Korea since The Manchurian Candidate — and this one is not just a fantasy.

Making this screening an even more memorable occasion is that Shin — who now lives in South Korea — will be appearing in person at the Lightbox for a Q&A session. And Marc Wiese, director of the doc, will be joining the conversation via Skype.

Shin, now 30, knows it is hard for most people to comprehend the mindset of someone who grew up inside a forced-labour camp, with no idea there were other ways of living on the far side of the lethal security fence that stopped most would-be escapers — including Shin’s companion when he broke out.

From the earliest age, Shin was told he was in this camp because his parents had committed serious crimes. The family lived in a one-room cell with no furniture, sleeping on a concrete floor. There was never enough food, so for special treats, they trapped rats, cooked them and ate them.

When he was 4, Shin attended his first public execution. He was told the victims were being punished for disobeying the rules. It didn’t take much to be singled out for punishment. Most inmates were dead by age 45. Many who avoided being executed were tortured, kicked and scarred for crimes as heinous as stealing a few grains of corn.

Shin got the message. If you want to survive in camp, you have to obey. He was deprived of basic human needs, but didn’t realize it because he knew no other life.

There was no bonding within the family, and he didn’t hesitate to inform on his mother and brother. That’s just what he was expected to do. Nevertheless, he was tortured for four days, and still has the scars to prove it.

What makes the film effective is the calmness with which the story is told, as if all this was just routine. To break up the interviews with Shin and a couple of former North Korean officials, Wiese uses a series of strikingly bleak artist sketches of life inside the prison walls.

Shin is the only person ever born in a Korean prison camp who managed to escape. What made him want to leave was the expectation there would be more to eat on the other side. But there have been times when life beyond Camp 14 was harder than those brutal early years of his life.

After escaping, he dressed in a soldier’s uniform he stole after breaking into a farmer’s barn. He also stole some bags of rice and cookies, which came in handy as bribes when he managed to cross the border into China. Spotted by a journalist, he was given asylum by the South Korean embassy.

Dealing with his memories, guilt, and overwhelmed by the challenges of being responsible for himself and handling money, Shin sometimes wished he could return to his old life.

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The film will be a revelation for any people who can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up in an environment like Camp 14, or think North Korea is just another country, or feel they personally have had a rough childhood.

I guarantee that no one who sees Camp 14 will ever forget it.

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