The history of film in Chicago dates back to the 1893 Columbian Exhibition, when on the grounds of the Midway Plaisance - within sight of the newly established University of Chicago - visitors saw their first moving images. Motion pictures have been an intellectual and cultural concern at the University ever since - from the Chicago School sociologists and psychologists who studied the effects of movie-going on children, to the decades of students who have made Doc Films the oldest and most ambitious student-run film society in the country. Recently, film and visual media have assumed even more prominence at the University through the groundbreaking scholarship of faculty in cinema and visual culture and the establishment of the Department of Cinema and Media Studies.

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