The 10th annual Doc10, a celebration of non-fiction filmmaking in Chicago, launches with a special shorts program this Sunday at the Siskel Film Center, followed by its full program starting on Wednesday, April 30th at the Davis Theater. The fest includes several films that we’ve covered at other festivals, and we wanted to highlight that coverage as a way to guide you through this year’s event, which includes a few of my personal favorite docs of 2025 so far: “The Perfect Neighbor,” “Ghost Boy,” “Predators,” and “Folktales.” It’s easily one of the strongest Doc10 line-ups to date, and arguably their best ever. Find the schedule below broken down with quotes from our coverage of each film and links to read more. If we haven’t covered the film, the copy is thanks to the press release. Get tickets here.
“Move Ya Body: The Birth of House” (Wednesday, 4/30, 7pm)
Music like Questlove’s Oscar-winning “Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” Bratton’s film blends civic and music history effortlessly while also having a truly banging soundtrack. You will learn a lot, get angry several times, and then get lost in the sick beats and dance yourself clean. – Robert Daniels
“In Waves and War” (Thursday, 5/1, 5:45pm)
Marcus Capone, Matty Roberts and DJ Shipley are elite and decorated Navy SEALs—highly skilled men who have been trained to endure combat’s most excruciating psychological and physical stresses—and yet, they are completely shattered by their experiences in Afghanistan. When government treatment options fail to address their PTSD, these fighting men embark on a new tour of duty: They travel to Mexico to undertake experimental psychedelic treatments to try to make themselves whole again. Using beautifully expressionistic animated sequences and emotionally powerful interviews, award-winning filmmakers and Doc10 alumni Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen (Athlete A, Audrie & Daisey) chronicle their extraordinary psychic battles, and the surprising light of hope that may exist on the other side. “Heartfelt… intimate… and wrenching” (Variety), In Waves and War is a “compelling [and] meaningful” (Indiewire) emotional drama about the untold promises of science and the fortitude of the human spirit.
“Ghost Boy” (Thursday, 5/1, 8:15pm)
Ascher’s films (“Room 237,” “The Nightmare,” “A Glitch in the Matrix”) often spiral in on themselves as they tell stories of introverted obsession. I have often found Ascher’s work a little relentless, but that approach perfectly fits the story here as Ascher isn’t just profiling people whose life choices or beliefs have made them a bit unusual but someone who was locked in his own body through no choice of his own. Pistorius is a forthcoming interview subject, telling his life story as Ascher cuts to fascinatingly staged recreations. They’re not traditional true-crime versions of what we’re hearing over narration—they’re sequences filmed very clearly on stages, complete with cameras and crew people visible in shots. This approach to “cinematic autobiography” adds another layer of complex non-fiction storytelling to a movie that tells a story you won’t soon forget. – Brian Tallerico
“Antidote” (Friday, 5/2, 5:45pm)
What is the cost of speaking truth to power? In Putin’s Russia, it could mean your life. This immersive docu-thriller follows Christo Grozev, lead researcher at the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, who famously identified those who poisoned Alexei Navalny. But now it’s Grozev who is in Putin’s crosshairs. While working on an exposé about Russia’s poison program and helping to exfiltrate a key Russian whistleblower, Grozev learns that he and his family’s lives are at risk. “Like a propulsive thriller, director James Jones’ galvanizing documentary moves at a break-neck speed chronicling its “high-stakes” (Variety), “unnerving” (The Hollywood Reporter) and “incredible” (CNN) tale about the perils of reporting on a tyrannical regime and the tremendous importance of journalism in today’s era of disinformation. While Antidote may feel like a riveting spy drama, it’s even more effective and affecting because Grozev’s story is all too real. “A rousing, feature-length call to action” (Variety).
“Predators” (Friday, 5/2, 8:15pm)
David Osit’s stunning “Predators” is much more than another attempt to interrogate our international obsession with true crime culture. It’s also an act of courage, confronting an increasingly vigilante-driven mindset that never pauses to understand that which is correctly considered vile, choosing instead to turn it into entertainment. – Brian Tallerico
“Folktales” (Saturday, 5/3, 1pm)
Ewing and Grady don’t manufacture or force anything, giving their film the tone of the peaceful setting in which it takes place. It’s a soothing experience that alternates raw conversation with gorgeously shot sequences of the landscape and the dogs who practically serve as therapy animals for these people. Dog lovers shouldn’t miss this one. Honestly, no one should. – Brian Tallerico
“The Perfect Neighbor” (Saturday, 5/3, 3:30pm)
I don’t think there was a documentary in the Sundance program this year more buzzed than Geeta Gandbhir’s excellent “The Perfect Neighbor,” a film that ends up a macro conversation about Stand Your Ground laws and systemic racism on a street in Florida while also being a micro-story of the loss of a friend and mother. It is a deeply moving piece of filmmaking that consists almost entirely of body-cam footage of the cops responding to disturbances on an ordinary Florida street, where an unordinary woman keeps calling them about the kids playing in her neighborhood. It is a film made so much more powerful by its lack of cinematic flourishes. Another filmmaker would have turned this story into Netflix’s true crime fare (more on that process later in this dispatch). Still, Gandbhir smartly understands that the footage speaks for itself, chronicling a pending tragedy like a slow-motion car crash. It is an infuriating story of a woman who considers herself above those around her. Gandbhir doesn’t have to comment on how much this story was formed by racism and privilege—the events speak for themselves. – Brian Tallerico
“Deaf President Now!” (Saturday, 5/3, 6pm)
As the filmmakers weave all this personal and political history together, they cleverly shift their use of sound, working in tandem with re-recording artist/director of Sundance Audience Award winner “Crip Camp,” Jim LeBrecht and Greg Francis, and sound designers Nina Hartstone and Eilam Hoffman. The result is a firebrand historical documentary that is as crowd-pleasing and informative as it is innovative and inclusive. – Marya E. Gates
“2000 Meters to Adriivka” (Sunday, 5/4, 1:30pm)
While the battle footage is harrowing and Chernov’s focus on the minutiae of combat violence is as relentless as war itself, for most of the film this style manages to render something as intimate as a young man’s death as empty as a video game. There are pockets where Chernov is able to spend time getting to know a few soldiers on a deeper level, later to reveal they died in another offensive a few months later. This dramatic irony showcases the weight of war, whereas the on-screen deaths of the men we never got to know feel more like a presentation of the “horrors of war” for viewer consumption. – Marya E. Gates
“Mistress Dispeller” (Sunday, 5/4, 4pm)
It doesn’t all work (she takes some brief but peculiar detours, which may work thematically but not so much at the moment), but there are moments of real tenderness and pathos here. The eventual face-to-face between wife and mistress is astonishing in what’s not said, what is said, and how it’s said. – Jason Bailey
