The Moviegoer is the diary of a local film buff, collecting the best of what Chicago’s independent and underground film scene has to offer.
It’s ironic that, on the occasion of the Reader’s Broke Day Trips package, I’ll be writing about attending the Temenos—the previously ongoing screenings of Gregory Markopoulos’s Eniaios—in Lyssarea, Greece. The only thing relevant about the trip to this theme is that I went for broke by going, committing to an unusual, once-in-a-lifetime cinematic experience that, per Markopoulos, “is the sustaining spirit of motion pictures.”
Markopoulos helped establish the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s filmmaking program in 1965. The American-born filmmaker, whose family emigrated from the Peloponnese and who spoke Greek until he was six years old, left the U.S. for Europe in 1967 and withdrew his films from circulation. There was also a small Chicago contingent at the Temenos; among those I knew were Nicky Ni, coprogrammer of the Onion City Experimental Film Festival, and Hannah Yang, formerly of the University of Chicago’s Doc Films.
I can hardly begin to proselytize on the Temenos in the space allotted, so let’s start with the name. In Greek, “temenos” means something akin to a “sacred precinct.” The screenings take place in a field accessible via a roughly 30-minute hike from the center of Lyssarea, where a screen rises from the landscape and red beanbag chairs dot the perimeter. It is here that the cycles of Markopoulos’s 22-part Eniaios—conceived by the filmmaker as a “complete order” of his work—have been presented in stages since 2004.
It is an absolutely singular vision and a similarly singular viewing experience. Though neither inexpensive nor confined to a single day, it felt beyond price. This year’s edition comprised four nights of screenings, from Thursday through Sunday, spanning Cycles XV–XVII and ranging in length, reel changes included, from three hours to more than four on the final night.
Before departing from Athens to Lyssarea, I experienced a more conventional moviegoing pastime in the city, an open-air cinema, where I saw Steven Spielberg’s latest, Disclosure Day (2026). This was a little more than 48 hours after I’d seen it for the first time back in Chicago, at the AMC River East, where it was being screened on 70 millimeter, making it only one of 19 theaters in the U.S. doing so. It’s proven to be divisive, shoring up admirers and detractors in equal measure. I rather like Disclosure Day, though the whole of this year’s Temenos experience now separates me from even the sublime act of seeing the film under the stars in Greece. Perhaps this necessitates a third viewing, so I can better articulate my appreciation of Spielberg’s late-period exhortation.
Ultimately, my favorite broke day trip is going to the movies. Theaters more often than not have memberships and discount days that can make it rather affordable, and films can take you anywhere you’d want to go, and even some places you wouldn’t think to dream of. There’s also what comes out of it: Between recent viewings of the new Spielberg and the final cycles of Eniaios, as well as all the amazing insight gleaned from my friends, colleagues, and even strangers contemplating either, I’ve much to think about, and that’s often the best trip of all.
Until next time, moviegoers.
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