University of Chicago-History

The University of Chicago's Documentary Films Group is the oldest student film society in the United States. It had its beginnings in the early 1930s when a group of students living in the university's International House came together around an interest in the emerging documentary genre. In 1941 the name "Documentary Film Group" was adopted, and the group began showing films in the university's Social Sciences building.

Early favorites of Doc Films, as it later came to be called, included documentaries produced for the Works Progress Administration and other government agencies. Documentaries on international subjects were also shown, with Flaherty's Man of Aran receiving half a dozen screenings during the 1940s. Almost from its inception, the group showed fiction films as well as documentaries, with a focus on bringing to campus European films to which students might not otherwise be exposed. The group made explicit that its purpose was not merely to provide entertainment to the campus community, but to explore and cultivate an appreciation for film as an educational and artistic medium. The idea that film could be a legitimate subject for serious study was not widespread in the 1930s and 1940s, making Doc Films' mission an unusual and innovative one.

...