In 1976, the documentary-fiction film Escape was shot in the villages around Pristava pri Mestinju. Its screenwriter, director and cinematographer was Mišo Čoh, then a student and member of the Emo Celje Photography and Film Club, and now a retired professor at the Faculty of Sport.
Mišo Čoh made sixteen short documentary and documentary-fiction films, which received awards at festivals at home and abroad. These included Evening Monologue, Tears, Waiting Room for the Afterlife, Angel’s Gaze and others. Escape, made fifty years ago, also holds a special place among his films.
The film tells the story of a young man leaving home. He sees no future for himself on a poor, remote farmstead, so he decides to leave for the city, not knowing what awaits him there. The young man is played by the director’s classmate Jože Čakš, while Caci Cerjak, then music editor at Radio Šmarje, provided the excellent musical accompaniment.
The film’s considerable documentary value comes from its many shots of people, farmsteads and the landscape of the village of Vonarje on the Sotla River. Their creation is connected with the fate of the village, whose residents were resettled at the time because of plans to dam the Sotla River and construct the Vonarje reservoir. The lake was indeed built in those years, but was later drained. Conditions in the area remain similar in many ways even today.
Vonarje was home to older residents, most of whom lived in modest, often impoverished conditions, far from larger settlements and modern life. Despite their difficult circumstances, they were deeply attached to their homes, their land and the place where they had spent their lives. The film Escape sensitively illuminates their lived reality, their attachment to their home surroundings and the uncertainty brought by change.
Mišo Čoh shaped the story with a keen sense of cinematic imagery and its narrative power. Documentary footage of people and the landscape is interwoven with the story of a young man setting out from home in search of a better future. His farewell to his family and homestead is filled with dejection and sadness, as uncertainty and fear of the future accompany him on his journey into the unknown. The young man thus reflects the feelings of someone who must come to terms with life’s circumstances and the fate assigned to him.
The film Escape won an award at the international film festival in Turku, Finland, as well as at several festivals in what was then Yugoslavia, including those in Subotica and Maribor.
Jožef Čakš
Photographs by: Mišo Čoh
