Birth of a Nation
1997
star 7.0
Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmake...
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Directing
Robert Beavers
Robert Beavers (born 1949) is an American experimental filmmaker whose work stands among the most significant in postwar avant-garde cinema. He is best known for My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure, an 18-film cycle spanning decades of work, much of it later re-edited.
Beavers developed a distinctive visual language using hand-cut mattes, filters, and precise sound–image structures, often focusing on craft and manual labor as metaphors for filmmaking itself. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, he began making films in New York before moving to Europe in 1967 with his partner, Gregory J. Markopoulos. Together they withdrew their films from distribution, presenting them only at the Temenos screenings in Arcadia, Greece (1980–86). After Markopoulos’s death in 1992, Beavers founded Temenos, Inc. to preserve both of their legacies.
His films draw deeply on place and history, from Florence in From the Notebook of… (1971/1998) and Venice in Ruskin (1975/1997) to the Greek landscapes of Wingseed (1985), The Hedge Theater (1986–90/2002), and The Ground (1993–2001). Later works include Pitcher of Colored Light (2007), The Suppliant (2012), Listening to the Space in My Room (2013), and The Sparrow Dream (2022).
Beavers continues to live and work between Berlin and Massachusetts with filmmaker Ute Aurand, while overseeing the preservation of both his own films and Markopoulos’s Eniaios.
Filmography
Browse movies and TV shows featuring Robert Beavers
From the Notebook of...
1972
star 6.3
Shot in Florence, the film draws on Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and Paul Valéry’s essay on da Vinci’s creativ...
Winged Dialogue
1967
An early exploration of intimacy and perception, the film portrays the body’s beauty and sexuality as animated...
Mother's Day
2006
Short video by Tom Chomont, features Robert Beavers and his mother during the filming of Pitcher of Colored Lig...
Early Monthly Segments
2003
Filmed when Beavers was 18–19, this self-portrait depicts him and Gregory J. Markopoulos in their Swiss apartme...
The Hedge Theater
2002
star 6.4
Filmed in Rome in the 1980s, the work draws on Borromini’s Baroque architecture and Il Sassetta’s St. Martin an...
Still Light
1971
star 6.0
Filmed on Hydra, the work studies a young man’s face across shifting light and landscape, framed through custom...
Eros, O Basileus
1967
star 4.0
Structured in nine tableaux each a study of a simple action or situation involving a lone, naked figure, the bl...
Sotiros
2000
star 6.7
Distilled in 1996 from an earlier 50-minute trilogy, this 26-minute film was shot in Greece and Austria and str...
A Visit With Robert
2024
In Spring 2013 I was artist in residence at Dartmouth College in New England. This was a vital time for me deve...
Due film-maker in giardino - Robert Beavers & Gregory J.Markopoulos
1987
Short film shot in Rapallo, 1987.
Plan of Brussels
1968
star 6.0
Filmed in a Brussels hotel room, Beavers alternates between his work desk and lying nude on the bed, while rapi...
Listening to the Space in My Room
2013
star 10.0
A portrait of a recently vacated home, the film evokes both memory and the lingering presence of past inhabitan...
Zuoz
2008
star 6.0
Filmed in Switzerland and released as part of a triptych with A Walk, Zuoz features the filmmaker Robert Beaver...
Cape Cod
2018
Jabbok
1967
The story of Jacob wrestling the angel at the stream called Jabbok.
The Mirror Garden
1967
A romantic and lyric study of a young friend and readings he encouraged, especially Mallarmé.