Naomi Klein, author of Shock Doctrine, in Toronto on Aug. 31, 2007. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

Shock Doctrine, a documentary based on the book by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, will be a centerpiece of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

The film by directors Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross will have its North American premiere at Sundance on Jan. 28, 2010, as the kickoff for the festival's awards weekend.

But it's also at the centre of a new thrust by festival founder Robert Redford to "share opinions, discuss the key issues of our day and reflect on the role art plays in social change."

Klein's book, which won the Warwick Prize, is an exposé of how shock is used by powerful interests to manipulate economic policy around the globe. Free market policies are pushed through at times of disaster and political upheaval, she argues, often to the detriment of local populations.

Montreal-born Klein is also author of No Logo as well as a widely published political and social thinker. However, she has removed her name from the credits of the film version of Shock Doctrine.

Whitecross, the American director behind The Road to Guantanamo, and Winterbottom, the British director who worked with him on the same film, presented Shock Doctrine as a work in progress at the Berlin Film Festival.

While Shock Doctrine is rolling in Park City, Utah, the Sundance Film Festival will be taking to the road to screen thought-provoking films.

Eight filmmakers and their features will be sent to art houses in eight different cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Brooklyn, N.Y., Nashville, Tenn., Madison, Wis., Ann Arbor, Mich., and Brookline, Mass.

The directors will introduce their work and answer audience questions afterward.

Redford is hoping to expand the reach of the festival with the road show, whose movies will be announced after the festival lineup is released in December.

"The concept behind Sundance Film Festival U.S.A. is to ignite dialogue as people across the country engage in a collective film experience. It is an extension of the work we have done for decades: supporting the independent voice, bringing artists to the table and inserting art more and more into the social context of how we live," Redford said in a statement released Wednesday.

The festival, a showcase of independent cinema, runs Jan. 21-31 in Park City, Utah.