Talk With Detroit Film Theater Director Eliot Wilhelm

Detroit Film Theater Director Eliot Wilhelm will be here to talk about several things: how the Film Theater got started, what are his favorite memories through the years working at the Theater, how does he select movies that they show, the importance of movie theaters, and what's the market these days for theaters that show art house and foreign films.

Mr. Wilhelm has been the director of the Detroit Film Theatre series at the Detroit Institute of Arts since 1973 and has been Curator of Film at the DIA since 1984. One of the most acclaimed and best-attended film programs in the nation, the DFT has been visited by more than five million moviegoers.

A lifelong Detroit-area resident, Mr. Wilhelm attended Cass Technical High School and Wayne State University, where he has been a part-time faculty member since 2015, teaching film history.  Elliot is the author of Videohound’s World Cinema: The Adventurer’s Guide to Movie Watching (Visible Ink Press, 1998), containing his reviews of over 800 non-American films.

In 2024, Elliot co-curated the DIA’s installation of Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971, an exhibition of objects and films illuminating the history of African American participation in American cinema. The exhibition – which drew more than 50,000 visitors over 20 weeks – was on special loan to the DIA from the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

The registration page for the event is located in the Library’s events calendar at dearbornlibrary.org.

More information can be found at dearbornlibrary.org or by calling (313)943-2330. Follow the Dearborn Public Library on Facebook and Instagram to learn about other upcoming events and announcements.