‘My Undesirable Friends’: Documentary profiles Russian journalists prior to fleeing country

‘My Undesirable Friends’: Documentary profiles Russian journalists prior to fleeing country

Now, it’s time for today’s perspective, and it’s a film about so-called foreign agents. Now, that is what they are forced to call themselves on air by the Russian regime. A group of young journalists, mostly women, reporting under increasing repression in Russia. Channels like TV Rain, dubbed as undesirable by Vladimir Putin’s regime. Now, the way they fight back against all of that is with black humor. And it’s all captured in the film My Undesirable Friends, Part One, Last Air in Moscow. It’s a Russian language American documentary film written and directed by Julia Loch. The film had its international premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival last month and Julia joins me now here on set. Thanks very much for coming to talk to us today. Going to watch a little clip in a moment. I talked about that black humor. Tell us about what we’re about to see. So what’s important to know is this is in 2021, 4 months before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine when nobody knew that a full-scale war was coming. And Russia was declaring all of these journalists foreign agents. And this was a time that it was still possible to have an independent television station in Russia. They were still fighting back. Right now in 2025, it’s impossible to imagine that this has existed in Russia. All of these media are now in exile. So, we’re about to see a marathon that they held against the foreign agent law um where they deal with things with humor and it was kind of the last days of resistance inside of Russia. Let’s have a watch then and see a little bit of the film. You’re watching that back now and knowing what’s happened since that was filmed. I mean, these people are pretty brave, aren’t they? It’s incredible. Like, imagine if you went on air every day and before you went on air, you had to say, “Hi, I’m a foreign agent.” You know, that’s obviously breaks people’s trust in what you’re doing. And they continue now in exile. All of the characters continue to kind of report the truth about the war in Ukraine. They’ll be happy based in Amsterdam. Now, it’s based in Amsterdam. they will all be happy to tell uh Trump about why you should probably not trust Putin. Um they continue to report the truth to any Russian that will listen about the war. And so this is, you know, the story of the last days when they were able to fight inside the country. And that’s what I’m interested in because I started filming before the war. I was able to capture that moment, you know, when resistance was still very possible inside of Russia and when everyone realized in the first week of the full-scale war that they had to flee the country. A million people have left. I mean, it’s incredible to think it’s just three years ago as well that that that was filmed or four years ago now, I suppose. What What um has happened to those individuals now? Did they all manage to get out? Are some of them still in Russia? Every single one of the characters that I filmed fled the country in the first week of the full-scale war. And I captured this. I mean, this is what the film is about is that moment um I was there during the first week of the full-scale invasion when all independent media was shut down. They all continued to figure out they they figured out how to get back up on their feet, how to work in exile. But I think it’s super instructive now for Americans. And you know, I was born in Russia. I’m an American. Um, I mean, I moved to the US when I was nine, and the way I think of the film now is very different than at the time I was filming it. At the time I was filming it, it was about something, you know, that happens over there in Russia, and now it’s something I think about daily as an American. Do you feel that that could happen in America, that extreme measure? I think that it’s about how democracy dies in small steps and then suddenly very fast. And I think it’s something to think about because so much of what is happening in the states that echoes, you know, I remember one of the characters talked about she used to be in the press pool and she got kicked out of the press pool because Putin started hand selecting the press pool. At the time it seemed like, oh, that’s something that happens over there in Russia. And of course, now Trump is selecting the press pool. So much is echoing what happened in Russia. And I think it’s really instructive. And what was it like then filming um that at the time? How easy was it to film and and what was it like getting those opinions and those real raw emotions that we see as part of the film from those individuals? Well, I filmed people I loved and I filmed people that it really I was showing it the other day at Cineural and somebody was saying it felt like a fiction and for me it’s about characters and people and they really deal with everything through humor through their lives and I think that’s really important to me all the life that happens around the big events. And where does it come from? You mentioned you were you were born in uh what was Leningrad now St. Petersburg of course but you immigrated to the US as a child didn’t you? I mean what was drove you to go back to to Russia to to make the film? So in the summer of 21 Russia started declaring individual journalists and media foreign agents and I thought something new was happening. I thought this is really something very strange because not only did they have to like mark their TV shows like this and their articles but they had to mark their Instagram posts of their cats, their vacation pictures. Everything had to be marked with this is brought to you by a foreign agent except in a very long paragraph. And I thought this is very interesting when a society starts to force people to mark themselves as others. Of course, what I didn’t know was that I was going to be capturing history like this huge moment, a turning point. And so I walked into this story. And what what can you continue to do? I suppose, you know, you obviously feel very passionate about uh about the film that you made, but also about what you were saying about the US earlier on. I mean, are there ways that you can carry on with your work to to to try and make people aware of of the situation? Of course, and I think that now thinking about how all the tiny steps in which democracy is dismantled that we should be very aware of. And I think one lesson from Russia is also people make compromises. people make compromises, they think they’re going to save their institution. I mean, we’re seeing it now with Columbia University, for example, in the States. You know, there’s all these ways you try to negotiate with the regime. Usually, it doesn’t work out well. Finally, I mean, you mentioned, we mentioned earlier on that they now broadcast from Amsterdam. They they keep uh working as it were. I mean, how much um praise can you can you have for those people who presumably are and not earning large salaries, but they feel that that that is the important way that their life needs to turn to try and continue to bring the truth to people. I’m really interested in this idea because there’s a second part to the film that I’m editing now of exile and the idea of how do you continue to work for the benefit of a country to which you have no idea when you will return. you might not return for decades. And I think that takes a lot of courage and determination to kind of continue working. Obviously, you know, all of them speak out about war crimes in Ukraine. They do tell the truth about the war as much as they can. And um as one of the characters said the other day, he said, “I like the story of Seephus, and I like the interpretation that he finds meaning in pushing the stone. And when he stops finding meaning in pushing the stone up the hill, he will stop doing it. But there’s meaning in the struggle itself. Good to hear about that struggle. Uh look forward to seeing the second part of the film as well. But the first part, as I said, is just uh been premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. It’s called My Undesirable Friends Part One last air in Moscow. Julia Lock, thanks very much for coming in and talking to us about it and showing us a little clip of it as well. Thank you.

A Russian-American filmmaker has spoken to FRANCE 24 about how her film captures the last days of resistance to the regime in Russia before the invasion of Ukraine. Julia Loktev, who was born in what was then Leningrad, grew up in the United States. Her film “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow” follows the staff of the television channel TV Rain, which aims to tell the truth about the Russian regime. Since the documentary was filmed, TV Rain has been forced to close in Russia and has set up home in Amsterdam, from where it now broadcasts. She spoke to us in Perspective.

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