Film Screening: First Reformed, dir. Paul Schrader

This critically acclaimed film by renowned director Paul Schrader explores the dark intersection of lost faith on a planet in peril. Considered “a summation of Schrader’s four-decade long career”, the film combines all of the director’s interests into a masterful work about a lonely priest (Ethan Hawke, in one of the best performances of his storied career), who adopts an alienated environmentalist’s martyrdom as the 250th anniversary of his small parish approaches.

First Reformed has been awarded the Green Drop Award at the Venice Film Festival, Best Original Screenplay at the INOCA Awards, and Best Director at the FEST International Film Festival. It is currently considered a front-runner for multiple Oscar nominations.

Sponsored by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts Henkels Grant, the Department of English, the Creative Writing Program, the William P. and Hazel B. White Fund, the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, the Department of Film Television and Theater, the Department of Theology, and the Minor in Sustainability.

Originally published at sustainabilitystudies.nd.edu.