A Chicago tale beginning with the infamous Comiskey Park Disco Demolition night and ending with the global rise of house music as sweet revenge opens the 10th edition of the nonfiction film festival Doc10 on April 30.
“Move Ya Body: The Birth of House Music” will be followed by 10 more documentaries, concluding on May 4, most screened at Lincoln Square’s Davis Theater with two at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
Programmed by film journalist, critic and Doc10 co-creator Anthony Kaufman (also a programmer with the Chicago International Film Festival), the boutique documentary showcase operates under the auspices of Chicago Media Project, a nonprofit organization focused on a wide array of social-impact projects.
CMP’s website leans into ideals and phrases such as “under-represented” and “multiple points of view” — in effect a rebuke to the current presidential administration. “When American democratic norms, the rule of law and basic long-held facts are under attack,” Kaufman said in the festival announcement, Doc10 is “a vital place for people to come together and experience people’s true stories and actual struggles.”
Five of the 11 films premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Among them, in addition to “Move Ya Body,” are “Antidote” — a nerve-wracker about journalist Chirsto Grozev’s life-or-death odyssey following reporting on Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s so-called “poison program” — and “2000 Meters To Andriivka,” highly regarded as an urgent account of a Ukrainian platoon’s trek through a deadly patch of forest in order to liberate a key village under Russian siege.
The full calendar of documentaries, including guest filmmakers, plus other festival events and ticket information, can be found at Doc10.org.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
