Video & Moving Image
Collaborative filmography with Hrvoje Horvatić (1986–1997) and independent moving-image works (1998–2012)
From 1986 onwards, Breda Beban developed an internationally acclaimed moving-image practice. In an intense twelve-year partnership with film director Hrvoje Horvatić, they produced and directed approximately thirty documentary and essay films for television in the former Yugoslavia between 1986 and 1990.
Following the outbreak of war in 1991 and subsequent exile in Italy, Vienna, Stockholm, and London, their work moved towards poetic, allegorical single-channel and multi-screen video installations addressing loss, displacement, love, and political vulnerability. After Horvatić’s premature death in 1997, Beban continued to produce an extraordinary body of work exhibited at major museums and international festivals.
Selected Video Works & Installations
STILL (2000)
Single-channel & multi-screen video installation · Site Gallery, Sheffield
A landmark autobiographical installation capturing moments of quiet emotional endurance and contemplation following profound personal loss.
The Most Beautiful Woman in Guča (2007)
Single-channel video · Guča Trumpet Festival, Serbia
Filmed at the famous brass festival in central Serbia, focusing intensely on the Romani dancer Marija and the delicate negotiations of gaze, power, and desire in a crowded male arena.
Beautiful Exile (2003)
Video work · London & Balkans
Reflections on female intimacy, memory, and dislocation across diasporic lives, featuring close collaborators including Dubravka.
The Geography of Departure (2001)
Two-screen video installation
An exploration of journeys across the Danube, addressing historical memory, borders, and transitions between East and West.