Filmmaker Julia Loktev’s voice is the first we hear in her epic new documentary. Over a nighttime shot of Moscow, she warns, “The world you’re about to see no longer exists. None of us knew what was about to happen.” For the next five-and-a-half hours, My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow more than lives up to that ominous opening. Loktev’s film chronicles the Russian government’s systematic crackdown on journalists in late 2021 and early 2022 as Vladimir Putin plots his invasion of Ukraine. Shooting by herself with just an iPhone, Loktev spent weeks at a time shadowing the young women and men of TV Rain, the country’s last independent news channel. The result is a gripping vérité portrait of citizens under siege by a tyrannical leader stripping away their freedoms.
Read the rest at: