Southeastern Michigan Film Festival Expands To DIA This Weekend

DETROIT (WWJ) - A southeastern Michigan film festival in its early stages is hoping to someday rival Sundance and Toronto.

The 2nd annual Cinetopia Film Festival is going on through Sunday night.

It started as an Ann Arbor event, but has this year expanded to the Detroit Film Theater at the DIA.

Emily Matthews is with the Michigan Theater, which is the home of Cinetopia. She says expanding to Detroit was an important next step in the festival's growth.

"We had a great turn-out, we had about five thousand people attend, and we thought we really want to grow this from year to year so we thought it would be really great if we could find a Detroit venue and make this more into a southeast Michigan Film Festival instead of a strictly Ann Arbor film festival," said Matthews.

Matthews tells WWJ that she hopes to rival the Cleveland International Film Festival in the future which attracts about 50,000 people over the span of a week.

There's still plenty of time to catch a flick, with the last showing Sunday evening.

Find a complete listing of films showing at Cinetopia - HERE.