Overview

• My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow began its U.S. theatrical run at New York’s Film Forum on August 15, presenting Julia Loktev’s vérité chronicle of independent Russian journalists.
• The five-and-a-half-hour documentary captures how the Kremlin labeled reporters as foreign agents, enforced state-mandated disclaimers, carried out raids and prosecuted staff at outlets such as TV Rain and Memorial.
• Scenes of podcasts mocking the “foreign agent” label and TV Rain’s defiant New Year’s broadcast illustrate journalists’ use of humor and camaraderie as forms of resistance.
• Reviewers in Rolling Stone and The Guardian have highlighted the film’s warning about how legal and extra-legal measures can erode democratic freedoms far beyond Russia.
• Loktev is nearing completion of Part II: Exile, which will follow the journalists’ forced departures and their efforts to continue reporting from abroad.