John Desplas, artistic director emeritus of the New Orleans Film Society, has died at 75. After helping launch the film society in 1989, Desplas served as its artistic director for 26 years.

A New Orleans native, Desplas graduated from the University of New Orleans. He wrote film reviews for the weekly Figaro before he helped found the New Orleans Film Festival. His work with the film society and film festival helped bring cinema by local, national and international filmmakers to local audiences through decades of change in the presentation of the moving image.

During Desplas’ 31-year association with the film society, its corresponding film festival grew from a local event to one of the nation’s most respected regional festivals, drawing an annual audience of more than 30,000 attendees. Desplas helped bring such film luminaries as Francis Ford Coppola, Todd Solondz, Charles Burnett, Richard Linklater and Alan Cumming to New Orleans. He also moderated a post-film discussion with director Steve McQueen, cinematographer Sean Bobbitt and actors Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson and Alfre Woodard following the film festival’s 2013 screening of the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave.

Desplas also represented the New Orleans Film Society at the SXSW Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. He frequently introduced films at film society events, offering spirited and informed insights through film descriptions, introductions and moderated talks with filmmakers.

In 1997, Desplas helped launch the New Orleans French Film Festival, which he curated through that festival’s most recent edition in February at the Prytania Theatre.

“The first French film I saw was Les Quatre Cent Coups by François Truffaut,” Desplas once said. “It was then that I fell in love with French movies.”

In 1995, France’s Ministry of Culture honored Desplas with the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2015, the Arts Council of New Orleans recognized Desplas as one of their Community Arts Awards Honorees. His other achievements included Film-O-rama, a weeklong series at the Prytania Theatre featuring new foreign-language features, documentaries and arthouse fare.

“John will be dearly missed by the past and present staff, board of directors and members of the New Orleans Film Society, and local cinephiles throughout New Orleans,” the society said in a statement.