In a dark, crowded theater at the Davis Theater on Sunday afternoon, Uptown resident Eva Gurtovaia stood up, fighting back tears.
Her husband, Enes Abek, a Kurdish asylum seeker from Turkey, was detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in November. She said he has since been transferred between detention centers in Texas and New Mexico as he awaits a judge’s decision that could determine whether he can return to Chicago or face deportation.
Gurtovaia said it will cost $24,000 to cover the legal and logistical expenses to bring him home.
“I’m working 60, 65 hours a week to cover it, but I’m not able to cover it by myself,” Gurtovaia said to the audience. “Share our story. My husband has to be here in Chicago, because his home is here in Chicago.”
Her story, “Eva’s Story,” premiered at Doc10, an annual Chicago film festival showcasing the top documentary films from around the world. But in its 11th year, the festival made a deliberate shift toward local storytelling and civic engagement.
“A lot of the folks that know (Doc10) have been asking, ‘where are the (documentary) stories of what’s been happening in Chicago?” said Doc10 co-founder Paula Froehle. “The documentaries about this, they take you inside. The stories are often very intimate, individual stories of people whose lives have been affected beyond the most alarming moments.”
While Doc10 features 10 flagship films every year, this year’s program expanded to include “Speak Truth,” a new series focused on urgent civic issues. The festival’s closing event, “ICE Under Watch: Media and Community Resistance,” centered on the human cost of last year’s large-scale immigration enforcement operation, “Operation Midway Blitz,” which led to dozens of arrests across the Chicagoland area.
“Eva’s Story” was one of three shorts screened Sunday by Chicago filmmaker Andrew Freer, founder of Go Fourth Media, an investigative documentary company he launched during the height of the raids last October.
His films document stories like Gurtovaia’s — and that of his neighbor, Scott Sakiyama, who said he was wrongfully detained by ICE. Freer’s film “Scott’s Story” was also shown Sunday.
“I think some people are worried about getting targeted by telling their stories but for a lot of people, including Eva, this is the worst-case scenario,” Freer said. “This is their last resort, getting the media out there to tell people what’s happening in order to receive support and put pressure on the government.”
Filmmaker Andrew Freer speaks during a panel discussion on “ICE Under Watch: Media and Community Resistance” after documentary screenings Sunday, May 3, 2026, for the Doc10 Film Festival at Davis Theater in Lincoln Square. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
Freer believes documentary film has a unique ability to humanize complex issues.
“Documentary in particular, more so than most mediums has a way to emotionally connect with people that other things can’t,” Freer said. “We’re trying to get this in front of as many people as possible to show them, what does it feel like to be shot by ICE? What does it feel like to have your family members being targeted? What does it feel like to be here as a legal asylum seeker and then suddenly being told that you can’t be here anymore, even though you’ve done everything right?”
He hopes the films keep attention on stories that are still unfolding.
“Rights are still getting violated, democratic values are still getting violated,” Freer said. “Hopefully this can keep a pulse on things and make people aware that this happened last year, but it’s still going on and we still need to pay attention and not lose focus.”
Freer largely runs Go Fourth Media on his own, with the support of fellow filmmakers and volunteers. The company’s name references both the Fourth Amendment and journalism’s role as the Fourth Estate.
“I started this because I hated what was happening to our community and our country,” Freer said. “I thought I could get out there and raise awareness.”
Another film screened Sunday, “El Sueño” (“The Dream”), comes from Chicago-based documentarian Carlos Javier Ortiz.
The unfinished feature film follows Venezuelan migrant families in Little Village over the past three years, from their arrival in 2022, when Venezuelan refugees were sent to Chicago in 2022 by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, to the aftermath of last fall’s ICE raids.
“The goal of the film is to create an archive of a time and place in Chicago about community, love, resilience and beauty,” Ortiz said. “People in American cities got teargassed by their government, that’s gonna be obvious. But also, life kept going. People are not here to harm, they’re not here to take, they’re just human beings.”
Filmmaker Carlos Javier Ortiz greets people after a panel discussion on “ICE Under Watch: Media and Community Resistance” following documentary screenings Sunday, May 3, 2026, for the Doc10 Film Festival at Davis Theater in Lincoln Square. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
Ortiz and producer Alexandra Halkin are seeking funding to complete the verite-style film by 2027. This kind of film can feature handheld camera work and no narrator.
Supporting filmmakers is central to Doc10’s mission, Froehle said, especially as funding becomes more uncertain.
The festival faced a major setback last year when its grant from the National Endowment for the Arts was cut.
“Literally the day after the festival ended, we got word,” Froehle said. “It could not have been more Shakespearean.”
Rather than scale back, Chicago Media Project, the group behind Doc10, chose to expand the festival.
“Doc10 is our biggest public platform to basically push back against this attempted censorship, and we should make it bigger and bolder and broader,” Froehle said. “So that’s the birth of ‘Speak Truth.’”
Despite losing federal support, she said the festival doubled ticket sales and donor contributions this year. Each “Speak Truth” screening also included expert panels and opportunities for audiences to connect with advocacy groups.
For attendee Diane De Re, she was so moved by Gurtovaia’s story that she’s donating what she can to help her husband return home.
“I’m not affected, I’ll be able to walk down the street and nothing will happen,” said the East Lakeview filmmaker and animator. “But when I see the people that are and then you see it on film, like oh my god, Eva. I’m broke as hell, but I’m going to sign up on her GoFundMe.”
She also plans to offer production support, like animation services, to filmmakers like Freer as he plans for bigger projects, such as documenting a deported family’s journey in Mexico.
“If there’s anything we can take off his plate, we will,” she said.
For Froehle, that kind of response is exactly the point of this year’s series.
“When social media and the cycle moves away from what happened, because unfortunately, there’s something even more alarming happening somewhere else, documentaries stay back,” she said. “They build trust with their subjects and in the process, they’re able to take you inside the lives of some of these individuals.”
Froehle said she plans to continue the “Speak Truth” series in future festivals to not just showcase films, but to foster community and action in Chicago.
“It provides the space to really get to the heart and soul of someone who’s been directly affected,” Froehle said. “When that happens, in a movie theater, in the dark with a whole crowd of people, and you are moved and everyone else is moved in a similar way, suddenly you have an understanding about a situation you may have been far removed from. And you’re connected with other people all feeling the same thing.”