Main Slate
My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile
Julia Loktev
New York Premiere
In the expansive and equally intimate second chapter of her monumental documentary, Julia Loktev traces the paths of a network of fearlessly outspoken broadcast journalists endangered for dissent against the Putin regime across Europe and even farther afield. Executive produced by Meryl Streep and Laura Poitras.
- Runtime
- 355 min
- Country
- U.S.
- Language
- Russian
- Year
- 2026
- More information
- Official film page
Screenings
Screens with one 30-minute intermission.
In the first part of her monumental documentary diptych, Last Air in Moscow (NYFF62), Julia Loktev closely followed a network of fearlessly outspoken broadcast journalists whose independent Russian news network, TV Rain, became endangered for dissent against the Putin regime in the buildup to the invasion of Ukraine in 2021. Its staff, mostly women, finally had to escape their country, which Loktev captured with remarkable immediacy and escalating tension. In her expansive and equally intimate second chapter, Loktev picks up precisely where she left off, continuing to trace the paths of these government-branded “foreign agents,” who have dispersed across Eastern and Western Europe and even farther afield. Despite having been sentenced in absentia to prison on charges of espionage, many of them plan to return home one day; in the meantime, they persist in spreading the word about the battlefield atrocities in Ukraine whether from the embattled, rebuilt TV Rain or their own channels. An epic that’s spread across Kyiv, Prague, Tbilisi, Amsterdam, Latvia, and New York, My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile brings Loktev’s cinematic achievement into full focus: like her undaunted subjects, she shows a commitment to bearing witness to the world’s injustices despite the powerful forces that try to silence us.
Screens with one 30-minute intermission.
In the first part of her monumental documentary diptych, Last Air in Moscow (NYFF62), Julia Loktev closely followed a network of fearlessly outspoken broadcast journalists whose independent Russian news network, TV Rain, became endangered for dissent against the Putin regime in the buildup to the invasion of Ukraine in 2021. Its staff, mostly women, finally had to escape their country, which Loktev captured with remarkable immediacy and escalating tension. In her expansive and equally intimate second chapter, Loktev picks up precisely where she left off, continuing to trace the paths of these government-branded “foreign agents,” who have dispersed across Eastern and Western Europe and even farther afield. Despite having been sentenced in absentia to prison on charges of espionage, many of them plan to return home one day; in the meantime, they persist in spreading the word about the battlefield atrocities in Ukraine whether from the embattled, rebuilt TV Rain or their own channels. An epic that’s spread across Kyiv, Prague, Tbilisi, Amsterdam, Latvia, and New York, My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile brings Loktev’s cinematic achievement into full focus: like her undaunted subjects, she shows a commitment to bearing witness to the world’s injustices despite the powerful forces that try to silence us.