MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART I (Chapters 1-3)

MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: Part I — LAST AIR IN MOSCOW
CRACKDOWN: Chapters 1–3

Nominee, Best Documentary, 2026 Film Independent Spirit Awards; Winner, Best Documentary Feature, 2025 Gotham Awards; Best Documentary/Non-Fiction Film, 2025 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards; Best Non-Fiction Film, 2025 New York Film Critics Circle Awards

Soviet-born American filmmaker Julia Loktev (DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT, THE LONELIEST PLANET) 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 frighteningly real reality show, 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 more globally relevant every day. (Note courtesy of Argot Pictures.) DIR/PROD Julia Loktev. U.S., color, 2024, 208 min, including a 10 min. intermission (Chapters 1–3.) In Russian with English subtitles. NOT RATED

MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART I — LAST AIR IN MOSCOW (FIRST WEEK OF WAR: Chapters 4–5) screens on March 8 and March 12.

Run Time: 208 Minutes

Opening Date: Saturday, March 07, 2026

Genre: Documentary

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