Our New Home – The Geralyn White Dreyfous Building

Utah Film Center officially opened the doors to our new state-of-the-art home, named in honor of our co-founder Geralyn White Dreyfous, in downtown Salt Lake City in September 2025! We’ve eagerly awaited this historic moment for filmmaking and film-watching in Utah.

Key features of our new space include:

180-seat screening and event room
Co-working space for storytellers managed through our Artist Foundry program
Two rentable Editing suites
Diane and Sam Stewart Reception Room: a multipurpose room that can be configured for receptions, trainings, and meetings
Dougan Conference Room: a 15-seat conference room with teleconferencing capabilities and surround sound
Administrative offices
Accessible entrances, rooms, doors, and restrooms

We’re excited to welcome the public into this vibrant new arts hub in the heart of the Marmalade District, designed to bring people together through the power of cinematic storytelling.

It’s always been an ambition for Utah Film Center to have a fixed home to host all of our programming. We are excited to announce that this August, we celebrated our 22nd birthday with a huge milestone…

For 22 years, we’ve felt a little like your couch-surfing friend: a house guest looking for a place to land temporarily, share in the good times, and then move on to the next place. Don’t get us wrong—we love popping up all over the state with free film education, artist support, and film exhibitions, and will continue to do so where we can, but it has not been without its challenges.

Our programming has had to change dates to fit various venue schedules. Our staff, in addition to their direct programming expertise, has had to develop an expansive knowledge of traveling film exhibition models. While this has been worthwhile, it can be inefficient at times. Additionally, without one physical location where audiences could interact with all of our programs, our biggest fans couldn’t enjoy the depth and breadth of opportunities available through Utah Film Center.

Coming out of the pandemic, the Film Center pivoted so much that we became dizzy! From the get-go, we got straight to work putting films on our own streaming channel and producing online Q&A sessions with chat features for audience participation. By the summer of 2020, we were masked up and headed out to provide drive-in movies, most notably for our neighbors in the Navajo Nation. What we learned most during this time is that people love to see films together, and sometimes, it does not even matter what film. In these moments, we set aside our words and truly listen, discovering that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.

As we traveled around the state, we told people about Utah Film Center: how our resources have been available for two decades, how we bring in filmmakers from around the world to connect with audiences and fellow filmmakers, and how we offer workshops for aspiring filmmakers of all ages and media arts education to thousands of students and teachers across the state. While explaining this for what felt like the millionth time, it became clear that we needed a building to become our lighthouse: a place where filmmakers and film enthusiasts could find an inspiring place to share ideas and explore the power of film.

– Mariah Mellus, Executive Director & Meghan Horner, Director of Development