Many people living in Madison are well aware of the $250 million in state funding cuts to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the changes to the university’s tenure system. But they might not know of similar reforms going on at the University of Texas-Austin. Or Louisiana. Or Virginia. Or North Carolina.

The documentary “Starving the Beast” connects the dots, profiling five public universities around the country — UT and UW plus the University of Virginia, University of North Carolina and Louisiana State University — where a philosophical war is going on. In every instance, conservative state legislatures backed by a network of think tankers and big-money donors have pushed the universities toward a more market-driven approach to higher education, eliminating tenure and protections for faculty.

After playing at the Wisconsin Film Festival in April, the film is coming back for a theatrical run at Sundance Cinemas beginning on Friday. WISCAPE executive director Noel Radomski, who is interviewed in the film, will take part in post-show Q&As after the 6:45 p.m. Friday and Saturday shows.

In an April phone interview from his office in Austin, co-director Steve Mims took great pains not to disparage one side of the argument or the other. He said his film is intended just to tell people what’s going on.