In 1975, high school dropout and aspiring songwriter Robert “Raven” Kraft made a New Year’s resolution to run eight miles in Miami’s South Beach, every single day. Since then he’s never missed a day. In 2012, photographer Mary Beth Koeth and writer Laura Lee Huttenbach teamed up to tell Raven’s story. Now, Robert Raven Kraft: Unstoppable, the documentary of Raven’s life, is available to the public, and in 2017, the book, Running With Raven, will be published by Kensington Press.
Since starting his eight-mile runs in 1975, Raven has accrued a following of over 2500 people who have joined his runs and earned themselves a spot on his legendary list. Mary Beth Koeth and Laura Lee Huttenbach are two of those runners, and when they got the idea to document Raven’s amazing story, they immediately launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds. They raised $29,000 to create the video and book. At the time the Kickstarter began, Mary Beth already had two years’ worth of footage for the documentary. She continued to film pieces of Raven’s life while the editor for the film, Wallace Cruz, went through the existing footage. Mary Beth and Wallace worked together for the next year and a half until they landed on something they felt good about. Here’s the trailer to Robert Raven Kraft: Unstoppable:
The full film is available to rent and purchase through Vimeo on Demand.
The film was shown in a private screening at Film Gate Interactive Festival, and Mary Beth’s documentation of Raven’s story has been covered in several magazines. As Mary Beth comes up on completing 220 runs with Raven, she reflects on just how important the Raven is to her as he is for so many people in the South Beach area. “He’s been a big part of my life here in Miami,” she says, “and he’s introduced me to several of my closest friends.”
You can learn more about the Raven project at runningwithraven.com. And to view more work from Mary Beth, visit mbkoeth.com.