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Doors 3:30 p.m.; Event 4 p.m.
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THE EXPERIENCE

American filmmaker Julia Loktev, born in the Soviet Union and now based in the U.S., returned to Moscow in 2021 to document the growing crackdown on independent journalism in Putin’s Russia. Months later, the country invaded Ukraine. What began as a vérité portrait of young reporters labeled “foreign agents” suddenly became a frontline chronicle of a nation sliding into war, repression, and exile.

Told across five chapters, My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow is an intimate, unflinching record of a community fighting to tell the truth as the ground shifts beneath them. Loktev’s camera captures the urgency, fear, humor, and resilience of journalists fighting Putin’s regime —offering a front row seat to how authoritarianism works and the lives of those who resist, which becomes more and more relevant both globally and in the U.S. every day.

This marathon screening includes two 10-minute intermissions:

ON SCREEN: My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow

2024. Directed by Julia Loktev. Runtime: 5 hours 24 minutes. 

Soviet-born American filmmaker Julia Loktev (The Loneliest Planet, Day Night Day Night) came to Moscow in 2021 to make a film about independent journalists being declared “foreign agents” by Putin’s regime — as it turns out, just four months before Russia started a full-scale war in Ukraine. With her friend Anna Nemzer, a talk show host at TV Rain, Russia’s last remaining independent news channel, Loktev brings us into a community of sharp, warm and funny young women speaking truth to power as they face increasing threats. Loktev filmed in Moscow during the first week of the full-scale invasion, as the journalists tried to counter Russian propaganda and report the truth on the war, until all independent media was shut down and they were forced to flee the country. Structured in five chapters, feeling like a cross between a Russian novel and a reality show about frighteningly real reality, Loktev’s film is an extraordinary historic record of a country on the verge of fascism and an immersive and intimate inside view of the opposition in an authoritarian society, which becomes all the more globally relevant every day.