Robert Beavers played a key role in American avant-garde cinema in the second half of the 20th century. Since 1967, he lived and worked in Europe, including in Brussels, to which he moved with his partner in life and work, Gregory Markopolous. Thanks partly to Jacques Ledoux, then curator of CINEMATEK, Brussels is where Beavers primarily developed his cinematic practice.

The mystery of the filmmaking process is a crucial element in Beavers' artistic signature. Winged Dialogue is characteristic of many of his films: at once lyrical and rigorous, sensual and complex. Mediterranean cities, landscapes, and cultural traditions unveil deeper personal and aesthetic themes. The sexuality of the body and the purity of the soul come together glowingly.

Beavers' attention to the physicality of the medium is also evident in the editing, a completely manual process that leads to a unique form of phrasing, once named by Harry Tomicek as "cinematic breathing", an exchange of speech and silence, emergence and concealment.