Meteora

Meteora is a 2012 Greek drama film directed by Spiros Stathoulopoulos. It competed at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2012. The film takes its title from the Byzantine monastery complex Metéora, in Thessaly, a series of structures built on natural sandstone pillars whose tops often disappear into the clouds. Plot All action takes place at, or near, the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, Meteora. A young Greek monk falls in love with a Russian nun. The story looks at the struggle between religious devotion, temptations of the flesh, the yearning of the human heart, and the role of the individual within the community of believers. The two communicate with each other across the valley using mirrors to flash a morse code signal, with lights dancing on the wall of her cell in the Agios Stefano Convent, also set on a rock pinnacle. The film is set in Central Greece, where medieval monasteries perch on the apex of hugely dramatic sandstone pinnacles, and the main access is to be hauled up in a net tied to a rope. A steep set of steps also access from one side. Views are breath-taking, and often in extreme long-shot, with human figures appearing as small black dots on the screen.