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Nearly 50 years ago, Maronite monk Kamil Kayrouz refused to join a Christian militia in Lebanon because he didn’t want to fight his fellow countrymen. Today he’s engaged in a different kind of battle: an interfaith collaboration to save Lebanon’s sacred cedar trees from rising temperatures caused by climate change.

Through meditative vérité cinema, Cedars of God shows how record temperatures and wildfires have put Lebanon’s historic cedar trees at risk of extinction — and how this has led to an unlikely alliance of Maronite monks and the environmental non-profit, Friends of the Cedar Forest Committee. Together, they’re on a mission to save the trees.

Because this documentary is observational, there will inherently be many elements of the film that will remain unknown until we capture them. What will guide our film will be the actual process involved in working to save the cedar trees and the obstacles that inevitably arise along the way, including the potential for an all out regional war.