First Reformed

Archive Film at Fabrica (25 June 2024, 6.00pm - 8.30pm)
This June, our Young Film Programmers, Fresh Perspectives, have chosen a film that explores the topic of the environment.

First Reformed / 2018 / 1hr&57mins / Rated 15


This A24 2017 psychological drama from one of American cinema's most revered artists follows Ethan Hawke's Reverend Ernst Toller as he leads a devoted but tiny congregation in upstate New York. Dissatisfied with a parish that is little more than a roadside tourist attraction, Toller's crisis of faith is deepened further following a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist as spiritual and ecological anguish collide.


"This is [Schrader's] transcendental style at its sharpest: its climactic stylistic leaps demand an exhilarating suspension of disbelief, and its homage sequences illustrate a necessary repetition, evoking the recurring human tendency toward self-destruction" Reverse Shot, Chloe Lizotte.


With an Academy Award-winning screenplay, Paul Schrader's First Reformed is a masterclass in restrained filmmaking - a grisly rumination on faith, guilt, and how our convictions will eventually eat us all alive.

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