DETROIT — There are a lot of factors that figure into building out the program at the Detroit Film Theatre, says Elliot Wilhelm, the long-tenured curator of film at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

"It's a lifetime of watching films and absorbing them," says Wilhelm, who's been on the job since the 1974 launch of the Detroit Film Theatre, which is now kicking off its 51st year of being Detroit's hub for contemporary and classic cinema from around the world.

Wilhelm says attendance at the DFT has bounced back to pre-COVID levels, which is significant due to the changing nature of film exhibition, including competition from streamers and other forms of entertainment.

The DFT also helps fill the void left behind by the closure of the area's art house theaters — the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak, the Maple Theater in Bloomfield Township and Midtown's Cinema Detroit have all shuttered in the last few years — and gives area cinephiles, young and old, a place to congregate and share their love of film.

"Many of the specialized theaters and independent theaters that show the kind of film we show are not able to survive financially anymore, and it's a tragedy, and a disservice to the public," says Wilhelm, 74. "In addition to just being able to see the films on the big screen, we provide a curated experience in the assembly of a schedule, and many of those theaters did that as well. We do we the best we can, but there's still so much more to do."

The DFT's current season includes several buzzworthy titles from across the globe, as well as the annual Academy Award-nominated short film program, which has become a highlight of the DFT's annual schedule.

"We have become the venue in the United States that attracts the most people to see (the shorts program) in a single theater," Wilhelm says. "We're either No. 1 or No. 2, based on certain years, between Detroit and New York. People love seeing them. And I think what they really love about it is the audiences get the chance to discover (these films) for themselves."

This year's Oscar shorts program runs across several weekends in February and into the first weekend of March; individual films in the presentation will be known when Academy Award nominations are announced on Jan. 17. The program is often at or near capacity, so to guarantee seating, it's best to buy tickets in advance.

Another highlight of this year's program, says Wilhelm, is "Oh, Canada," the latest from Paul Schrader, the 78-year-old Grand Rapids-born filmmaker and screenwriter legend (he penned "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull") whose latest-latest comeback kicked off with 2017's "First Reformed."

The movie, about a filmmaker (played by Richard Gere, and Jacob Elordi in his younger years) looking back on his life, plays Jan. 10-12.

"'Oh, Canada' seems like a movie that (Schrader) felt free to make," says Wilhelm. "It's about a filmmaker who believes that he has not always been honest with the people around him and perhaps not always with himself — although that's something that viewers may have to decide — and he decides to tell the story of his life by looking into a camera."

Wilhelm is also excited about "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat," Johan Grimonprez's documentary about the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba and the incidents that lead up to it. It screens Jan. 17-19.

"I think a lot of people are going to be surprised, enlightened and fascinated by the pure history that the documentary presents," he says. "It's fascinating on a number of levels, it's timely, and it does one of the things that non-fiction movies can do, which is it has many ways of telling the truth."

Also on the DFT's docket this season are "A Traveler's Needs" (Jan. 24-26), a South Korean comedy starring Isabelle Huppert; "The Symbol of the Unconquered" (Feb. 1), the 1920 film that was in some ways a response to D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation"; and "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" (March 7-9), a 4K restoration of the 1965 Ukrainian tale.

Wilhelm says he wasn't sure people would show up on the DFT's first night, back on a snowy evening in January 1974. But they did, and several generations of cinema lovers have since kept the theater going, and going strong.

That continues to be the case; over the holidays, Wilhelm says, more than 2,000 people came out for a program of four silent films presented with live musical accompaniment.

"We've been doing really nice numbers," he says, "but more importantly than that, audiences seem invested emotionally in returning to the kind of films we show."

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