THE SPARROW DREAM

Robert Beavers, USA/Germany, 16mm, 29 min, 2022

Filmed in Berlin and Massachusetts. The turning pages of a child’s version of The Odyssey and the site of a Korean War monument in my hometown, Weymouth, suggest different sides of the same subject: nostos , or homecoming. The vision of Greece, first awakened in my childhood, remains a source. Despite different histories, one culture reflects another.

Each morning in Berlin, I remove the ashes from the ceramic ove n in my room before lighting the new coals; each time I look at the new flam es a different thought arises. It seems that there are an infinite number of q ualities in fire.

Robert Beavers (1949). 25+ films since 1966; screenings at all major venues for artists’ film, including EXPRMNTL, Whitney Biennial (2017), and solo presentations at The Museum of Modern Art and Austrian Film Museum.

Guggenheim Fellowship (1972); MCFF Grand Prize (2014). Founder of Temenos, an archive and screening series in Zürich and Greece dedicated to the films of Gregory Markopolous. Lives in Berlin, Germany.