The monastery of Saints John and George of Choziba — commonly called Saint George's — occupies a ledge on the sheer side of Wadi Qelt, the canyon that cuts through the Judean Desert on the ancient route between Jerusalem and Jericho. Blue domes, terraces and a bell tower project from the cliff above a dry riverbed, with hermits' caves hollowed into the rock face around it, some still linked to the monastery by paths and ladders. It is a Greek Orthodox house, still inhabited, and continues a tradition of desert monasticism that turned this canyon into one of the most densely occupied wildernesses of the Byzantine world. Visitors descend on foot from the plateau above, and pilgrims are received in the church, where icons and reliquaries fill a small, intensely decorated interior. The film exploits the site's exceptional cinematography — the canyon at sunrise, the terraces from the air, the switchback path, the water channel that still carries a spring along the cliff — and gives voice to the small community for whom this vertical position is simply where they live.
