Presented in association with BAMPFA.
Admissions: General Admission $13.50 / $7 SF Cinematheque and BAMPFA members
Advance tickets available here.
Cinematheque members please email sfc@sfcinematheque.org for member discount code.
Info on Cinematheque membership available here.
Over the course of the past fifteen years, BAMPFA has had the honor of hosting the Berlin-based American avant-garde filmmaker Robert Beavers on a number of occasions. Each visit has offered an opportunity not only to experience his films, which are nearly impossible to see outside of specialized screening contexts, but to enter into a dialogue with him regarding the nature of film form and the poetics of cinema. His weeklong residency as part of the Cinema Mon Amour series will continue that conversation, allowing viewers a special chance to see Beavers’s work alongside a selection of films that have inspired his understanding and appreciation of film language.
Beavers’s commitment to the art of filmmaking is philosophical—to a greater understanding of reality, existence, and the self. Yet his films do not prescribe one line of reading or analysis, but rather use an open form that offers each viewer space for interpretation. His films draw inspiration from the world around him and from traditions in art, architecture, and literature. Beavers uses the syntax of cinema to express ideas and emotions: he foregrounds qualities of the filmed image and articulates spatial relationships between images and between image and sound, just as a poet might use the arrangement of words, assonance, consonance, and rhythm to evoke meaning or a composer might employ leitmotif, harmony, and compositional structure in musical expression. Filled with meaning and resonance, Beavers’s intricate and subtle films reward multiple viewings.
IN FOCUS: THE POETICS OF CINEMA
Thursday, November 10 2:20pm.
Lecture/Screening with filmmaker Robert Beavers. Judith Rosenberg on piano. Robert Beavers leads a discussion on the poetics of cinema and presents several of his films, including Work Done andRuskin, alongside an excerpt from Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed. Full details here.
ROBERT BEAVERS SELECTS: VAMPYR
Friday, November 11 7pm.
Introduced by Robert Beavers. Carl Theodor Dreyer’s film is paired with Gregory J. Markopoulos’s Swain, an early psychodrama trance film; both were influential on Beavers’s aesthetic. Full details here.
ROBERT BEAVERS ON CINEMATIC SPACE, COMPOSITION, AND STRUCTURE
Saturday November 12 8pm.
Robert Beavers in person. The concluding trio of films, Hedge Theater, The Stoas, and The Ground, in Beavers’s magnificent film cycle offers images of ineffable beauty and unspoken eloquence. Full details here.
ROBERT BEAVERS: RECENT FILMS
Monday November 14 7pm.
Robert Beavers in person. Four films made by Beavers since 2007, including his exquisitePitcher of Colored Light and graceful The Suppliant, paired with the Bay Area premieres of Four Weeks and Ute Aurand’s Four Diamonds. Full details here.
From Carl Theodor Dreyer's "Vampyr"