Equipped with cameras, microphones, curiosity and knowledge, a director and a psychotherapist headed to prison. For eighteen months, every Thursday they spent time with those convicted of serious crimes – murderers, smugglers, drug dealers, robbers… The film WHEN I GET OUT will be screened at Competition Programme – Documentary Film.
Director Metod Pevec and psychiatrist Vladimir Milošević were interested in something that the one-sided, sensationalist media, eager for clicks and instant popularity, never offer us. They were interested in who these people were, what made them criminals and whether there was a chance that after serving long prison sentences their lives could take a different course.
A lot of time, effort, patience, complete openness and professional curiosity were invested in this film. How did you decide to embark on such an adventure in the first place?
Every good film is born as an adventure. I learned this from my previous documentaries. For the documentary Home (Sarajevo Film Festival, 2015), I moved into a single men’s hostel for a year, living among transition-exploited construction workers and other unfortunate souls on the margins of society. Only by being with them every day did I become their companion, rather than just an author who came to collect his film story. I view this type of filmmaking as a partnership. If my professional interest is the film, then it is only right that I also consider the motivation and interest of those who will share their stories in it. We also started the film When I Get Out with the idea that filming would last at least a year. We knew what the process would look like, but we didn’t know how to convince the convicts to participate in the film with uncovered faces and an honest attitude. The adventure began with an unusual audition in the largest Slovenian prison. The question was, would anyone even apply for a risky and long-term collaboration with a psychiatrist and a film director? But they did, and we even had to make a selection for the final cast. The next question was, would they last a year? And they did.
Was psychodrama expert Vladimir Milošević part of the story from the very beginning, or did you come up with the idea to hire him during the preparation and research phase for the film?
For a long time, the film was just an idea, or rather just my desire to explore the background of criminal identity, but for a long time, I didn’t know how to enter this world at all. I only knew that a classic documentary approach with interviews and statements would remain on the surface, where there is usually a lot of insincere performativity. I knew we needed interaction among themselves, and that I, as the author, had to step back or even hide. The answer came over the radio when I randomly listened to a conversation with Dr. Milošević on the topic of psychodrama. His conversation opened the door to the film for me quite literally, too, because Dr. Milošević had already conducted psychodrama workshops with prison staff. Furthermore, he already had filmmaking experience, having participated in the preparations for the film Men Don’t Cry. In essence, we combined the therapeutic process and film shooting, so much so that at times I didn’t know which was more important.
You scratched far beneath the surface of the crimes your protagonists committed, dealing with the sociological, psychological, and customary background of their behaviour, guilt, and remorse. Did they have any form of group therapy in prison before your arrival, or was this a completely new experience for them?
They do have a special occupational therapy department in this prison, where convicts engage in painting, music, pottery, and the like, but they do not have group therapy. They can always get help from a psychiatrist, but that is mostly limited to psychopharmaceuticals, which convicts tend to abuse. Therefore, it turned out, surprisingly, that they gladly welcomed a psychiatrist; they had already missed open personal conversations while in a life of crime, and even more so in prison. Psychodrama opened exactly that door for them. At every workshop, we opened up an interesting topic. On one hand, we were interested in the genesis of criminal identity, which led us into their childhoods, their families, and unhealed traumas. The other focus was directed toward the future: what will it be like when I come out.
The moments in which the protagonists reach insights about the roots of their own criminal behaviour are particularly impressive, cathartic moments that often ended with tight hugs between them. How did it affect you emotionally that you were present at such moments, that you provided them with insights that they did not expect?
I was behind the camera most of the time, looking at the screen. However, it is true that many times I felt as if, even during filming, I was watching scenes from an emotionally intense movie. In those moments, a sense of relief probably accompanied all of us. Something that had been left unsaid for years, or even carefully hidden as a personal burden, came out into words. You know how it goes: men don’t cry, men can handle anything, and we hide personal problems that might make us seem weak for as long as possible. In our psychodrama game over a year and a half, we crossed this male Rubicon. This is also what I am most proud of. We became film collaborators and friends.
It is interesting how the protagonists felt the need to discuss the concept of normalcy and how much they could not agree on what would be normal and what would not. Is it mediocrity, compliance with the law, maintaining unwritten rules and family tradition, something imposed, or something accepted?
In this scene, it becomes clear how stressful a life of crime is; easily earned money is inevitably accompanied by a lot of fear and constant tension. Therefore, for some, exiting crime already meant transitioning into a world of peaceful, albeit perhaps even boring, normalcy. Someone else, however, believes that normalcy is merely a loose social contract that no one fully follows. Of course, it is a complex question of coexistence and living together, which requires setting social norms and thereby limiting personal freedom. What surprised me most in this process was how eagerly the participating convicts opened up complex philosophical questions—without being aware, of course, that they were debating within the framework of ancient and perhaps even unsolvable dilemmas that philosophers have been dealing with for the past two thousand years. In fact, our convicts had a stronger experiential basis for their views than many philosophers. A normalcy in which everyone would feel normal turns out to be a utopia. I am a philosopher by education, but during filming, I had to admit to myself that we intellectuals might think even more loosely and in an unnecessarily sophisticated, scholastic way. Thought is not the property of intellectuals, even though they like to claim it. Thought is merely a tool of a free spirit. In this sense, our prisoners proved to be exceptionally free.
The question of how much the penal system deals with the human being, and how much it does for the rehabilitation of perpetrators of serious crimes compared to the repressive part concerning serving the sentence, is a draconian one. Therefore, the announcement that you are preparing a six-episode series of fifty-minute episodes made up of material that did not fit into the film seems particularly interesting—with the last episode showing the situation two years after filming in prison. This is something that the media, as a rule, do not deal with. Are you already working on that episode, and can we hope for a glimmer of light in life after serving the sentence?
We started filming in 2022, and we are still following and filming the participating convicts now. We are following the title When I Get Out. Some are already free. Those who have the support of their families integrate into society relatively quickly. One of our convicts owns a construction company with 25 employees and does everything legally; another lives with his mother and is still looking for a job. It is harder for those who are left with only criminal company. Everything is difficult: carrying the stigma of a convict, obtaining documents, finding an apartment, a job, rebuilding broken relationships… In the series, we will be able to speak more extensively about our film-therapeutic cooperation in prison, and above all, we will follow their difficulties in integrating into society.
