Jvari stands alone on a bare ridge above Mtskheta, the ancient capital of eastern Georgia, at the point where the Aragvi flows into the Kura. Tradition holds that a cross was raised here when the kingdom adopted Christianity, and the church built on the site in the sixth century takes its name from that memory. Architecturally it is a landmark: a compact tetraconch, four apses inscribed within a cross plan and rising to a central dome, resolved with a clarity that made it a template for Georgian church building for centuries afterwards. Carved reliefs above the entrances survive in remarkable condition. Part of the ensemble of historical monuments of Mtskheta inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, Jvari is as much a landscape as a building: the rock, the wind, the two rivers meeting below in visibly different colours, and the old capital spread out beneath. The film works from the air and at close range, following light across bare stone through the course of a day.
