5200 Woodward Ave
Detroit, MI 48202
United States
Dinner to follow AAW Annual Meeting and Lecture.
Dinner to follow AAW Annual Meeting and Lecture.
| For members | 20% off in DIA Shop |
DIA Members get double their usual 10% discount on Museum Shop purchases and be tempted by a first look at exciting new gift selections for the Spring season.
Various vendors will host trunk shows during the Double-Discount Days.
DIA Members get double their usual 10% discount on Museum Shop purchases and be tempted by a first look at exciting new gift selections for the Spring season.
Various vendors will host trunk shows during the Double-Discount Days.
| Free with general admission |
*General museum admission is FREE for residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.
5200 Woodward Ave
Detroit, MI 48202
United States
Stephanie Stebich, the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), gives us an update on the museum's multiyear project to rethink and reinstall the entire museum, and its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, by our nation's semiquincentennial on July 4, 2026.
This lecture is free and open to the public. No reservation is required.
Stephanie Stebich, the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), gives us an update on the museum's multiyear project to rethink and reinstall the entire museum, and its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, by our nation's semiquincentennial on July 4, 2026.
This lecture is free and open to the public. No reservation is required.
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
6
– 7 p.m.
| Free with registration |
*Registration is FREE for residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.
5200 Woodward Ave
Detroit, MI 48202
United States
Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971 explores the rich history of Black participation in American cinema, from its beginnings to just past the civil rights movement and the dawn of the so-called Blaxploitation era.
Join the exhibition’s co-curators Doris Berger and Rhea L. Combs as they discuss behind-the-scenes insights into their five-year journey of archival research and conversations with artists and filmmakers to create this groundbreaking exhibition, which seeks to revive lost or forgotten films, filmmakers, and performers for a contemporary audience.
Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971 explores the rich history of Black participation in American cinema, from its beginnings to just past the civil rights movement and the dawn of the so-called Blaxploitation era.
Join the exhibition’s co-curators Doris Berger and Rhea L. Combs as they discuss behind-the-scenes insights into their five-year journey of archival research and conversations with artists and filmmakers to create this groundbreaking exhibition, which seeks to revive lost or forgotten films, filmmakers, and performers for a contemporary audience.
Thursday, Jun 6, 2024
7 p.m.
| General admission | $10.50 |
| Senior, Students, and DIA Members | $8.50 |
+$1.50 online convenience fee
Inspired by the themes of this year’s Mighty Real Queer Detroit biennial, I’ll Be Your Mirror: Reflections of the Contemporary Queer, is a program of LGBTQ+ documentary shorts curated by filmmaker Adam Baran. Drawn from films produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ll Be Your Mirror assembles an intergenerational portrait of queer lives in these increasingly perilous times.
You’ll visit the sites of early rights rebellions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, experience a punk rock fairytale in Florida, observe three elders grappling with their place in the world, and witness firsthand lives filled with beauty, joy, and hard-fought freedoms, balanced against backgrounds of isolation, climate catastrophe, racism, and transphobia.
Out of the Corner of Our Eye asks what queer space looks like—and might mean—today. This poetic documentary reflects on seven iconic, formerly queer spaces in Los Angeles that are no longer what they were, including a lesbian community haven, a research center funded by a pioneering trans man, and the custom-built home of America's first well-known drag performer.
This punk rock fairytale doubles as a portrait of Shoog McDaniel—a fat, queer, and disabled photographer working in and around northern Florida’s freshwater springs. For over a decade, McDaniel's photographs have transformed how a fat-phobic society views fat bodies. The film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, in which marginalized bodies—including bodies of water—are sacred.
In August 1966, three years before the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, sex workers and drag queens in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood rioted against police violence at the all-night diner Compton's Cafeteria. There was no news coverage, and the arrest records no longer exist. Decades later, trans historian Susan Stryker interviewed the surviving Compton’s Queens, including professional drag performers and those who identified with terms like girls, queens and hair fairies.
Queenie is a 73-years-young Black lesbian who has lived in The Marcy Projects in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood since 1988; now, she’s ready to move to a building that meets her mobility, safety, and social needs as an aging elder. She applies to Stonewall Residences, New York's first affordable housing for LGBT elders, hopeful she’ll be able to live out her final days in a place she can call home.
After four decades playing tough guy roles, a Mexican American actor in San Francisco must choose whether to continue presenting as male or come out as female and risk losing job security and family acceptance.
A 58-year-old Black queer man speaks about his life as an emergency nurse, leather titleholder, and civil rights advocate.
From an isolated wooded cabin, a trans man stargazes, Scruff-chats with guys, watches YouTube tutorials, takes drugs, and lies about taking drugs—feeling his way through a cosmology of embodiment. Bigger on the Inside probes the boundaries between interior and exterior, to consider bodily insides as passageway and portal to the immensity of longing.
Presented in partnership with Mighty Real/Queer Detroit.
Inspired by the themes of this year’s Mighty Real Queer Detroit biennial, I’ll Be Your Mirror: Reflections of the Contemporary Queer, is a program of LGBTQ+ documentary shorts curated by filmmaker Adam Baran. Drawn from films produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ll Be Your Mirror assembles an intergenerational portrait of queer lives in these increasingly perilous times.
You’ll visit the sites of early rights rebellions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, experience a punk rock fairytale in Florida, observe three elders grappling with their place in the world, and witness firsthand lives filled with beauty, joy, and hard-fought freedoms, balanced against backgrounds of isolation, climate catastrophe, racism, and transphobia.
Out of the Corner of Our Eye asks what queer space looks like—and might mean—today. This poetic documentary reflects on seven iconic, formerly queer spaces in Los Angeles that are no longer what they were, including a lesbian community haven, a research center funded by a pioneering trans man, and the custom-built home of America's first well-known drag performer.
This punk rock fairytale doubles as a portrait of Shoog McDaniel—a fat, queer, and disabled photographer working in and around northern Florida’s freshwater springs. For over a decade, McDaniel's photographs have transformed how a fat-phobic society views fat bodies. The film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, in which marginalized bodies—including bodies of water—are sacred.
In August 1966, three years before the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, sex workers and drag queens in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood rioted against police violence at the all-night diner Compton's Cafeteria. There was no news coverage, and the arrest records no longer exist. Decades later, trans historian Susan Stryker interviewed the surviving Compton’s Queens, including professional drag performers and those who identified with terms like girls, queens and hair fairies.
Queenie is a 73-years-young Black lesbian who has lived in The Marcy Projects in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood since 1988; now, she’s ready to move to a building that meets her mobility, safety, and social needs as an aging elder. She applies to Stonewall Residences, New York's first affordable housing for LGBT elders, hopeful she’ll be able to live out her final days in a place she can call home.
After four decades playing tough guy roles, a Mexican American actor in San Francisco must choose whether to continue presenting as male or come out as female and risk losing job security and family acceptance.
A 58-year-old Black queer man speaks about his life as an emergency nurse, leather titleholder, and civil rights advocate.
From an isolated wooded cabin, a trans man stargazes, Scruff-chats with guys, watches YouTube tutorials, takes drugs, and lies about taking drugs—feeling his way through a cosmology of embodiment. Bigger on the Inside probes the boundaries between interior and exterior, to consider bodily insides as passageway and portal to the immensity of longing.
Presented in partnership with Mighty Real/Queer Detroit.
Now in its 15th year, the Inside|Out program brings high-quality reproductions of the DIA’s collection to outdoor venues throughout metro Detroit to increase engagement between the museum and its diverse audience.
From now through October, residents of Macomb, Wayne, and Oakland counties will be able to enjoy a piece of the DIA outside in their own community. Each community will display a number of reproductions outdoors clustered within walking or biking distance. Learn more about the program here!
Follow the DIA on Facebook and Instagram (@DIADetroit) for updates on Inside|Out 2024 and share your photos using the hashtag #DIAInsideOut for a chance to be featured on the DIA's social media accounts!
The Detroit Institute of Arts' Inside|Out program is made possible by Tri-County millage support and Ford Philanthropy.
Now in its 15th year, the Inside|Out program brings high-quality reproductions of the DIA’s collection to outdoor venues throughout metro Detroit to increase engagement between the museum and its diverse audience.
From now through October, residents of Macomb, Wayne, and Oakland counties will be able to enjoy a piece of the DIA outside in their own community. Each community will display a number of reproductions outdoors clustered within walking or biking distance. Learn more about the program here!
Follow the DIA on Facebook and Instagram (@DIADetroit) for updates on Inside|Out 2024 and share your photos using the hashtag #DIAInsideOut for a chance to be featured on the DIA's social media accounts!
The Detroit Institute of Arts' Inside|Out program is made possible by Tri-County millage support and Ford Philanthropy.
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
7 p.m.
| General admission | $30 |
*Ticketing is not handled through the DIA.
USA/2024 — dir. Gary Hustwit
Visionary musician and artist Brian Eno has produced albums for David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads, and many more. He was a founding member of Roxy Music, pioneered the genre of ambient music, and has released more than 40 solo and collaborative albums. Eno has always been a fearless embracer of new technologies in the service of creative endeavors and this biopic is no different.
It uses a proprietary generative software system developed by Hustwit and digital artist Brendan Dawes to create a new film that is unique for each audience. Eno has millions of possible variations drawn from Hustwit’s original interviews and the artist's own archive of hundreds of hours of never-before-seen footage and unreleased music.
The result is a film that resonates with Eno’s own artistic practice, his methods of using technology to compose music, and his endless deep dive into the mercurial essence of creativity.
Tickets are available in advance and at the door exclusively on the Eno website.
USA/2024 — dir. Gary Hustwit
Visionary musician and artist Brian Eno has produced albums for David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads, and many more. He was a founding member of Roxy Music, pioneered the genre of ambient music, and has released more than 40 solo and collaborative albums. Eno has always been a fearless embracer of new technologies in the service of creative endeavors and this biopic is no different.
It uses a proprietary generative software system developed by Hustwit and digital artist Brendan Dawes to create a new film that is unique for each audience. Eno has millions of possible variations drawn from Hustwit’s original interviews and the artist's own archive of hundreds of hours of never-before-seen footage and unreleased music.
The result is a film that resonates with Eno’s own artistic practice, his methods of using technology to compose music, and his endless deep dive into the mercurial essence of creativity.
Tickets are available in advance and at the door exclusively on the Eno website.
Sunday, Apr 14, 2024
6 p.m.
| General admission | $15 |
*Ticketing is handled directly through the Freep Film Festival.
USA/2024 — dir. Dawn Porter
The signer Luther Vandross started his career supporting David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, and many more. He was nicknamed "the Velvet Voice," and despite having multiple platinum albums and top 10 hits, he struggled to break out of the R&B charts.
“Considering the stamp he put on the American music industry, it feels strange there hasn’t yet been a documentary about his legacy until Dawn Porter’s Luther: Never Too Much … after experiencing her loving portrait you can’t imagine Vandross’ story being told by anyone else.” — Tomris Laffley, Indiewire
Tickets for all Freep Film Festival screenings hosted at Detroit Film Theatre are available in advance at freepfilmfestival.com.
Produced by the Detroit Free Press, the Freep Film Festival focuses on documentaries, especially those with connections to Detroit and Michigan. Screenings include in-depth discussions with directors, film subjects, and community members. Freep Film Festival also presents live events at venues throughout metro Detroit, with activities centered in the downtown core.
USA/2024 — dir. Dawn Porter
The signer Luther Vandross started his career supporting David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, and many more. He was nicknamed "the Velvet Voice," and despite having multiple platinum albums and top 10 hits, he struggled to break out of the R&B charts.
“Considering the stamp he put on the American music industry, it feels strange there hasn’t yet been a documentary about his legacy until Dawn Porter’s Luther: Never Too Much … after experiencing her loving portrait you can’t imagine Vandross’ story being told by anyone else.” — Tomris Laffley, Indiewire
Tickets for all Freep Film Festival screenings hosted at Detroit Film Theatre are available in advance at freepfilmfestival.com.
Produced by the Detroit Free Press, the Freep Film Festival focuses on documentaries, especially those with connections to Detroit and Michigan. Screenings include in-depth discussions with directors, film subjects, and community members. Freep Film Festival also presents live events at venues throughout metro Detroit, with activities centered in the downtown core.
Saturday, Apr 13, 2024
7 p.m.
| General admission | $15 |
*Ticketing is handled directly through the Freep Film Festival.
USA/2024 — dir. Mark Stryker | 78 min.
You can’t tell the history of Jazz without telling the story of Detroit. The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit explores the lives of the city’s innovative and influential musicians during Detroit’s dramatic rise as an industrial power.
Scores of world-class musicians have rolled off Detroit’s assembly line, nurtured by the profound legacy of mentors such as Barry Harris, Marcus Belgrave, and Rodney Whitaker. The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit reminds audiences how and why the city has become the once and future crossroads for American Jazz masters.
Tickets for all Freep Film Festival screenings hosted at Detroit Film Theatre are available in advance at freepfilmfestival.com.
Produced by the Detroit Free Press, the Freep Film Festival focuses on documentaries, especially those with connections to Detroit and Michigan. Screenings include in-depth discussions with directors, film subjects, and community members. Freep Film Festival also presents live events at venues throughout metro Detroit, with activities centered in the downtown core.
USA/2024 — dir. Mark Stryker | 78 min.
You can’t tell the history of Jazz without telling the story of Detroit. The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit explores the lives of the city’s innovative and influential musicians during Detroit’s dramatic rise as an industrial power.
Scores of world-class musicians have rolled off Detroit’s assembly line, nurtured by the profound legacy of mentors such as Barry Harris, Marcus Belgrave, and Rodney Whitaker. The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit reminds audiences how and why the city has become the once and future crossroads for American Jazz masters.
Tickets for all Freep Film Festival screenings hosted at Detroit Film Theatre are available in advance at freepfilmfestival.com.
Produced by the Detroit Free Press, the Freep Film Festival focuses on documentaries, especially those with connections to Detroit and Michigan. Screenings include in-depth discussions with directors, film subjects, and community members. Freep Film Festival also presents live events at venues throughout metro Detroit, with activities centered in the downtown core.
Saturday, Apr 13, 2024
2 p.m.
| General admission | $15 |
*Ticketing is handled directly through the Freep Film Festival.
USA/2023 — dir. Mitch McCabe | 75 min.
Part verité essay, part political diary, 23 Mile is an experimental nonfiction film that follows Michigan citizens during the difficult, tumultuous year that was 2020, where political events included a plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the world went into COVID lockdown. McCabe's film shows the full scope of humanity, though, and makes viewers question their assumptions about race, class, social status, and geographical demographics.
Filmmaker Magazine called 23 Mile an "endlessly fascinating and elegantly crafted 78-minute video diary...which serves as a much-needed cinematic reminder that uncomplicated narratives that simply confirm our preconceived notions do a disservice to us all."
Tickets for all Freep Film Festival screenings hosted at Detroit Film Theatre are available in advance at freepfilmfestival.com.
Produced by the Detroit Free Press, the Freep Film Festival focuses on documentaries, especially those with connections to Detroit and Michigan. Screenings include in-depth discussions with directors, film subjects, and community members. Freep Film Festival also presents live events at venues throughout metro Detroit, with activities centered in the downtown core.
USA/2023 — dir. Mitch McCabe | 75 min.
Part verité essay, part political diary, 23 Mile is an experimental nonfiction film that follows Michigan citizens during the difficult, tumultuous year that was 2020, where political events included a plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the world went into COVID lockdown. McCabe's film shows the full scope of humanity, though, and makes viewers question their assumptions about race, class, social status, and geographical demographics.
Filmmaker Magazine called 23 Mile an "endlessly fascinating and elegantly crafted 78-minute video diary...which serves as a much-needed cinematic reminder that uncomplicated narratives that simply confirm our preconceived notions do a disservice to us all."
Tickets for all Freep Film Festival screenings hosted at Detroit Film Theatre are available in advance at freepfilmfestival.com.
Produced by the Detroit Free Press, the Freep Film Festival focuses on documentaries, especially those with connections to Detroit and Michigan. Screenings include in-depth discussions with directors, film subjects, and community members. Freep Film Festival also presents live events at venues throughout metro Detroit, with activities centered in the downtown core.