Detroit Film Theatre Curator

Elliot 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 nearly four million moviegoers in the last 38 years.

Honored as a “Michigan of the Year” in 1984 by The Detroit News (the same year
Detroit’s current mayor, Dave Bing, also received that honor), Wilhelm has been host
of the weekly Detroit Public television program “Film Festival” since 1995, and has
twice been nominated for Emmy awards for his writing. A lifelong Detroit-area resident,
Elliot attended Cass Technical High School from 1963 through 1967 and Wayne State
University from 1967 through 1971.

In addition to Detroit Public TV, his film reviews have appeared on WJBK-TV (CBS
Detroit), WDET-FM (Detroit’s NPR affiliate), and WJR-AM (Cap Cities/ABC), as well
as in the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News. He has taught numerous courses
in film history for both the DIA and Wayne State University, and is the author of
Videohound’s World Cinema: The Adventurer’s Guide to Movie Watching (Visible
Ink Press, 1998).

Steffanie Christi’an