My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow
Geplant als intimes Porträt unabhängiger russischer Journalist*innen, die von Putins Regime verfolgt werden, nimmt der Film eine abrupte Wendung, als Russland einen Krieg gegen die Ukraine beginnt und sie alle ins Exil gezwungen werden.
What begins as an intimate portrait of Russian independent journalists facing persecution by Putin’s regime takes a drastic turn when Russia starts a full-scale war in Ukraine and they are all forced into exile. The film offers a front row seat to how authoritarianism works and the lives of those who resist, which becomes all the more globally relevant every day.
Soviet-born American filmmaker Julia Loktev 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.
Regie
Julia Loktev is a Russian-American film director, screenwriter, and video artist, who was born in St. Petersburg and emigrated to the USA when she was nine. She received a degree in Film and Communications from Montreal’s McGill University and completed the New York University Graduate Film Program. Her first feature documentary, MOMENT OF IMPACT, won several prizes, including the Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Prize at Cinéma du Reél. DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. Her feature film THE LONELIEST PLANET screened at the New York Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Emerging Icons Award from the George Eastman Museum. She has also created several video installations, which have been shown in many galleries and museums in London, New York, Munich, Valencia, and Japan.