This film occupies a hybrid space between documentary, performance, and visual essay. Set within the haunting shell of Sarajevo’s Dom Penzionera—a bold architectural vision never realized—it transforms the abandoned building into a stage for dancers who animate its silent walls. Through choreography and sound, the performers evoke a visceral tension between memory and erasure, tradition and gentrification. The architecture becomes both character and container, while movement serves as a universal language to express loss, resistance, and the question of what remains when a place built for care is never allowed to live.
BACKGROUND STORY
The Retirement Home in Sarajevo is the work of architects Mladen Gvozden and Dragan Bijedić, for which they received the most prestigious architecture award in the former Yugoslavia – the BORBA AWARD. Due to the events of the war, the building was almost completely destroyed and damaged, and today exists as an empty shell of its former self. For generations of young people who have never seen the Retirement Home in its full glory, the building, even in its current state, remains a powerful spatial landmark, and many cannot even imagine this area without it. This building, designed in a bold postmodern architectural style, stands as one of the most significant examples of this architectural epoch in Sarajevo.
In recent years, the plot and the building have been privatized, and new architectural and urban planning solutions have been proposed by several local architectural offices and individuals through a private, closed, invitation-only competition. Some of these proposals can be found online; however, the common thread among them all is capitalist consumerism and commercial architecture. The projects presented to the public completely erase the Retirement Home from the site, treating it as a “blank sheet.” The fact that none of the architects attempted to preserve parts of the existing complex shows that we do not understand our own history and heritage, and that as a profession, we prioritize capital-driven, investment architecture.
Since the time of Palladio and Alberti, who were the first to use images in their discussions, the articulation of architecture has directly influenced its further development. Drawings, sketches, painting in the early days, and later photography, film, and computer graphics have made the social role, political message, and cultural value of architecture accessible to the wider public in every part of the world. It is therefore no surprise that this has always attracted special attention from architects, who eventually turned to professional photographers and artists to document and interpret their projects. Photography and video, as powerful research tools, enable precise and intimate explorations of the built environment and a more dynamic and engaged presentation of ideas and visions. Similarly, video and media artists turn their attention to architecture as a dense repository of ideology, spatial conflicts, and consumption, transforming it into an essential narrative device, sometimes even making it the main character in their stories.
This film explores the art of video as a new way of researching, questioning, and reflecting on themes related to architecture and the built environment. The film’s concept is based on examining the paradigm of gentrification in cities. Authentic buildings, such as the Retirement Home in Nedžarići, Sarajevo, are disappearing from urban spaces, only to be replaced by increasingly generic buildings oriented toward capital and consumerism—none of which contribute to the values of urban growth and development.
In the building of the Retirement Home in Nedžarići, a group of dancers/actors will perform a symbolic battle through space, accompanied by music, movement, and dance, representing the two polarities of the building’s identity—the first being the devastation of the structure, symbolizing authenticity and freedom, and the second symbolizing invasive capital, gentrification, and genericity. The dancers’/actors’ movements tell the story of the struggle for space while simultaneously revealing the building’s history.
The film tells the story of the building’s fate through contemporary dance, with music underscoring the theatricality not only of the movement but also of this remarkable architectural structure. The music will include elements of sevdah and classical music.
The film SPACE OF BECOMING explores the transformation and urban context of the Retirement Home building in Sarajevo. It portrays two opposing poles present in urban development—tradition and gentrification—depicted through a dance battle inside the building and a narrative of its transformation.
Director & Editor: Rebeka Bratož Gornik
Choreographer & Performer: Daniel Proietto
Cast:
Anastasija Dunjić, Issa Osmić, and Nedim Šuvalija
(3rd-year students of the Department of Acting at the Academy of Performing Arts, University of Sarajevo),
as part of the Dance course taught by Emir Fejzić
Cinematographer: Martin Klabus
Drone Operator: Sabina Hodović
Camera Assistant: Muhamed Pašalić
Makeup Artist: Hana Zeba
Soundrack composers: Oskar Longyka & Tobija Hudnik
Sound Designer: Muhamed Bajramović
Audio Engineer: Borut Belančič (Studio Pianoroom)
Consultant editor: Almir Zoletič
Colour design: Simon Gosnik
Production assistant: Dženeta Dejkić
Photographer: Šaira Delić
Production: Dani Arhitekture and RBG Film
Producers: Irhana Šehović & Dunja Krvavac
In collaboration with LINA and Creative Europe
Year of Production: 2025
This film was produced by the LIFT Spatial Initiative [Bosnia and Herzegovina], in cooperation with RBG Films [Slovenia] and the Academy of Performing Arts of the University of Sarajevo [Bosnia and Herzegovina], under the patronage of the LINA European Architecture Platform – Creative Europe.
