the project

EARTH’S NATURAL WONDERS: Living on the edge

BBC ONE · PBS

An ambitious landmark series combining extraordinary landscapes with intimate human stories, revealing the ingenuity, courage and traditions of the people who make their lives in some of the most challenging environments on Earth.

In Ethiopia’s remote Gheralta Mountains, a new mother and her family undertake a perilous 400-metre ascent with her newborn son to reach a church carved high into the cliffs — an intimate story of faith, family and tradition set against an extraordinary landscape.

Bafta

Television Craft nomination for Photography: Factual

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Overall series rating IMDB

Highlights

High in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the Gheralta Mountains rise dramatically from the semi-arid plains below. Carved into their sandstone cliffs are ancient churches accessible only by climbing the rock face — a journey that remains an important part of religious life for the communities who live beneath them.

The film follows Ngisti and her family as they prepare to take her newborn son, Dawit, to Abuna Yemata Guh for his baptism. Local tradition holds that boys should be baptised on the 40th day after birth, giving the family a fixed day on which to undertake the journey.

For Ngisti, the challenge is particularly acute. Recovering from a difficult birth just over five weeks earlier, she joins her family and village on a journey lasting several hours. The route includes a near-vertical 20-metre climb using hand and footholds worn into the rock, before the final approach to the church along an exposed ledge with drops of around 200 metres on either side.

Against the immense scale of the Gheralta landscape, the film remains rooted in one deeply personal journey. The physical danger of the climb and the vulnerability of a newborn child give tangible weight to a story about faith, tradition and the lengths a family will go to secure what they believe is the best possible beginning for their son.

“Cinema-worthy footage.”

— The Independent

production

Episode 'Living on the Edge", directed by Anne Sommerfield, presented an unusual filmmaking challenge: the baptism would happen only once, on Dawit’s 40th day, leaving the team a single opportunity to capture a journey that could not be repeated or reconstructed.

Ahead of the shoot, the team recce’d the entire route to understand how they could follow the family safely without losing the immediacy of their experience. Rope-access specialist Tim Fogg worked with the crew to devise a way of filming the 400-metre ascent, using specialist climbing and safety equipment to negotiate the exposed rock face.

That preparation also gave the team first-hand experience of what the family would undertake without ropes or safety equipment. The final approach was particularly challenging: a narrow ledge high above the valley, exposed to fierce winds with a drop of around 200 metres.

The storytelling places the audience within the journey rather than observing it from a distance. Wide photography establishes the monumental scale of the Gheralta Mountains, while close observational filming stays with Ngisti, Dawit and their family as the physical and emotional stakes of the climb increase.

The result is a sequence driven as much by character as spectacle. The extraordinary location provides the scale, but the family’s motivation gives the journey its emotional weight — turning a dramatic ascent into an intimate story of motherhood, faith and tradition.