Hozoviotissa clings to a vertical cliff on the eastern coast of Amorgos, in the Cyclades, its white facade pressed into the grey rock several hundred metres above the Aegean. The monastery is extraordinarily narrow - a stack of rooms, chapels and passages fitted into the fault in the cliff, with corridors barely wide enough for two people and windows that open directly onto the void. Tradition places its foundation in the eleventh century, under imperial Byzantine patronage, and its icon of the Virgin is the object of a devotion that reaches far beyond the island. A steep stone stairway is the only access, and visitors climbing it are still offered water, raki and a sweet by the handful of monks who remain. The film uses aerial photography to reveal the improbability of the site, then follows the stairway inside, through the chapel, the treasury and the terrace, where the horizon opens with nothing between the wall and the sea.
