Doc Films
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The Documentary Film Group, better known as Doc Films, is a student-operated film society at the University of Chicago. The society is on record with the Museum of Modern Art in New York as the longest-running organization of its kind in the United States. The organization was founded in December 1940 as the International House Documentary Film Group, though its antecedents stretch back to 1932. Initially the group focused on “the realist study of our time via nonfiction film,” but the documentary alone could not sustain the organization; within a few years, the group’s programs expanded to include fiction and experimental films, a mixture that it maintains to this day. Doc presently screens films every night of the academic year at the Max Palevsky Cinema, located in Ida Noyes Hall on the University's campus.
Its selection is eclectic. Each quarter of the academic year, it takes proposals for themes and films from the University's student body; its members then vote to designate a theme for each weeknight (Sunday through Thursday) and recent films, normally delayed one quarter from their nationwide release date, on weekends. Occasionally, it screens films which have not yet been released to the general public, such films include: Corpse Bride in 2005, Stranger than Fiction in 2006, and Apocalypto also in 2006.
Doc is open to the public. Tickets cost $5. A $26 pass provides associate member status and admission to every regular screening for the length of the quarter.
Doc has hosted forums and presentations by many luminaries of the cinema industry, including Alfred Hitchcock, Frederick Wiseman, Fritz Lang, John Milius, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Terrence Malick, Harold Ramis, Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen, Darren Aronofsky and Thom Andersen.
