The 2007 Sundance Film Festival has announced it is to screen a documentary as its opening night film.
The World Premiere of Chicago 10 - written and directed by Brett Morgen - will kick off the festival in Park City, Utah, on January 18.
A spokesman for Sundance Film Festival said: "Chicago 10 is an innovative documentary that combines historical storytelling, archival footage, interviews, animation and music to tell the story about the 1968 anti-war protests around the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that resulted in the famous Chicago Conspiracy Trial in 1969.
"Set to the music of revolution, then and now, Chicago 10 is a story of young Americans speaking out and taking a stand in the face of an oppressive and armed government."
Sundance Film Festival director Geoffrey Gilmore said: "We are pleased to open the 2007 Sundance Film Festival with Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10. We are particularly excited to be able to present a film that pushes the boundaries of many of the traditional aspects of documentary filmmaking, that speaks to audiences beyond what one might expect and that exemplifies the range of creativity and diversity that we support at the Festival."
Brett Morgen, whose previous films include The Kid Stays In The Picture, about Paramount producer Robert Evans, said: "I am thrilled and honoured.
"The Festival’s long-standing generosity and tenacious support of independent filmmakers is exhilarating and humbling.
"It seems fitting to me that a film about the importance of taking a stand should launch the 2007 edition. For the past five years I have laboured to bring this story into focus and with each passing day, the film becomes increasingly relevant. I can’t think of a more appropriate time and place to unleash this beast."
Chicago 10 is presented by River Road Entertainment and Participant Productions. The feature length documentary is produced by Vanity Fair editor - and sometime critic of the Bush administration - Graydon Carter and Brett Morgen.
The animation sequences in Chicago 10 feature the voices of Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo, Dylan Baker, Liev Schreiber, Nick Nolte, Jeffrey Wright, Roy Scheider, and Leonard Weinglass.
A documentary was last shown on Opening Night of the Festival when Stacy Peralta’s Riding Giants premiered in 2004.
