(Image provided)

LAKE PLACID – The Adirondack Film Society Screening Series opens with “First Reformed” Friday, Sept. 14 and Saturday, Sept. 15 at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts.

This fierce, gripping thriller is about a crisis of faith that is at once personal, political and planetary-hailed by the critics as a late-career masterpiece by its writer-director Paul Schrader, who wrote the screenplays for “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” and directed such films as “Affliction,” “American Gigolo” and “The Canyons.”

The film tells the story of a pastor of a small church in upstate New York (Ethan Hawke) who spirals out of control after a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife.

“A fierce film [by] Schrader, one of the crucial creators of the modern cinema…” — Richard Brody, The New Yorker; “This mesmerizing drama of a pastor’s crisis of faith feels like the movie Paul Schrader was put on this planet to make.” — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post.

This film is rated R (for some disturbing violent images). The runtime is one hour, 53 minutes.

All seats are $10.

For more information or reservations, call 518-523-2512.