Synopsis

Over the course of two years, How We Get Free follows Elisabeth Epps as she works to abolish cash bail in Colorado and put an end to the criminalization of poverty. Epps is the founder of the Colorado Freedom Fund, one of the over 100 community bail funds around the country, which started to help incarcerated individuals who can't afford their bail before trial. For Epps, this work is personal - she spent time in jail herself, bearing witness to the conditions she is so desperate to change. The film opens in the fall of 2020 as she drives around Denver with thousands of dollars of cashier's checks in hand, bailing people out of jail (or as Epps says, "paying ransom"), and sparring with the local Sheriff, about the future of policing. But after years of grassroots activism, and on the heels of the 2020 racial reckoning, Epps is confronting a new challenge: calls from her community to run for State Representative.