Director: genius embracing beginnings of silent era (10)
I believe the answer is:
eisenstein
'director' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'genius embracing beginnings of silent era' is the wordplay.
'genius' becomes 'einstein' (as in Albert Einstein).
'embracing' indicates putting letters inside.
'beginnings of' suggests taking the first letters (the beginning letters).
The first letters of 'silent era' is 'se'.
'einstein' going around 'se' is 'EISENSTEIN'.
(Other definitions for eisenstein that I've seen before include "Fledermaus tenor, Soviet film-maker" , "Russian film director" .)