Cine Enastron
We created the open cinema in a degraded area full of rubble, with considerable slope, next to a small tree cluster. using natural materials, stone and gravel, we built stone terrace steps and arranged removable seats and small tables between them. The 100-seat space has a screen of 5x3.50 meters and a small room for the management of the projectors, sound and lighting equipment.
Access from the parking lot to the cinema is via a pretty corridor under the tamarisk trees, bordered by reeds and softly lit.
The cinema area is also connected with the café-bar and the restaurant. The open-air cinema Enastron, at a remove from the summer hustle, offers to its Greek and foreign visitors, the magic experience of a movie under the starry night and the sea breeze.
There is something really happening here
On an August night in 2012, i found myself at the Monastery of Ai Yannis. That is where i suddenly saw through the reeds two huge black and white silhouettes, kissing. Getting closer i saw that they were two old acquaintances, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
They were the last people i expected to come across during a night stroll in Paros. Yet, there they were, on the screen of an open air amphitheater, while a few scattered spectators were enjoying the famous kiss scene in Casablanca.
I sat among them to enjoy the rest of the movie. Having already seen the movie several times, my attention was also drawn to things other than the plot, such as the excellent quality of the sound system, the reeds swaying to the wind on the side of the screen and the sight of the lit up Naoussa bay in the distance. The verses of a song by Savopoulos came to mind: “Something really is happening here, something that is mystical...” From that night on, i wanted to become a part of this mystical thing. I proposed myself as a programmer of the films to be shown. The immediate positive response of those in charge of the Park was a pleasant surprise, and uncommon for the world of cinema. I took great care deliberating about the movie genres that would interest such a diverse public as that of Paros in summertime.
It proved to be a time of creative anxiety. The screening of the first movie in the following summer was well received. It was Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows”. To my surprise, the audience applauded at the end. Gradually, a faithful audience of Greeks and foreigners started coming together three times a week for an alternative kind of entertainment to the raging night crowds of the side streets of Naoussa.
It is as if Savopoulos knew that “something really is happening here, something rich and unfamiliar like a deep sea landscape”.
Sotiris Goritsas
Film director