Novelist Russell Banks is helping rally support for the revival of a film festival in New York's Adirondack Mountains, part of a longer-term effort to make the resort town of Lake Placid a hub for film-making.

The Lake Placid Film Forum started about 15 years ago, when a local crowd packed the downtown Palace Theatre for a screening and panel discussion of "The Sweet Hereafter," a 1997 film adaptation of Mr. Banks's 1991 novel about an Adirondack community that comes apart after a fatal school bus crash.

Out of that screening grew a low-key annual film festival, with an emphasis on educating audiences and young film makers about the process. It attracted regional crowds and, in some years, A-list film makers and corporate sponsors. "Sleepless in Lake Placid" was a competition of collegiate film-making teams, who came to town to cast, shoot and edit a film in a single 24-hour period.

Audiences and activity at the film forum began to dwindle in the years after the 2008 economic crash. In June this year, the four-day event was dark.

Mr. Banks and local film lovers want to turn the lights back on starting with a series of monthly screenings at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. The first screening is set for Friday, Sept. 12--a return of "The Sweet Hereafter."