Gregory Markopoulos, one of the most singular filmmakers of 1960s American underground cinema and a central figure in both the New American Cinema and the Filmmakers’ Cooperative, left the United States for Europe in 1967. By the time he was conceiving Gammelion, several unrealized production plans, declining health, and financial hardship had already converged upon him. He had once intended to film Julien Gracq’s novel The Castle of Argol at the Castello di Rocca Sinibalda in Italy, but the project never came to fruition.