‘My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow’ Review: A Five-Hour Chronicle of Fear, Exile and Resistance in Putin’s Russia

In Nazi Germany, people also sat and waited for things to turn out fine,” a veteran expert—now living outside Russia—tells a younger woman who confesses her anxiety and paralysis in the face of the war in Ukraine and the mounting restrictions affecting those who remain in the country. It’s a line that has been repeated often, to the point of sounding like a cliché. But after watching My Undesirable Friends, its weight becomes undeniable—the uncomfortable truth it carries settles in. Filmed between 2021 and 2022, before and during the invasion of Ukraine, Julia Loktev’s five-and-a-half-hour documentary unfolds in the present tense, capturing what it feels like to witness—and be part of—a process that increasingly resembles national disintegration.

Loktev, the filmmaker behind the harrowing Day Night Day Night, was born in Russia but raised in the United States. In 2021, she returned to her country of birth intending to make a documentary about a group of independent journalists—mostly women—who had been labeled “foreign agents” by Vladimir Putin’s government. Among them are her longtime friend Anna Nemzer, a TV Rain talk show host; Sonya Groysman and Olga Churakova, who co-host the podcast Hello, I’m a Foreign Agent; and reporters Ksenia Mironova, Irina Dolinina, and Alesya Marokhovskaya, among others. None of them could have anticipated that what had been a slow but steady tightening of pressure on independent media would, within a year, escalate into outright persecution.

My Undesirable Friends – Part 1: Last Air in Moscow consists of five episodes divided into two distinct sections, which effectively separate the periods before and after the invasion of Ukraine. The first section—three episodes totaling just over three hours—introduces the protagonists, observing where and how they work, the constraints they face as officially designated “foreign agents” (including the obligation to preface every article and even social media post with that label), and the toll this takes on their personal, romantic, and professional lives. Nemzer stands out as the most visible figure: a glamorous, modern-looking television host who openly opposes Putin’s policies despite the threats and limitations imposed on her work.

This first stretch also serves as a portrait of contemporary Moscow, captured through Loktev’s restless, mobile camera. It’s a city that appears modern, even vaguely hip—TV Rain’s aesthetic feels like a hybrid of CNN and MTV—yet one surrounded, just beneath the surface, by an array of invisible constraints. Among the many anecdotes and reflections the women share, one of the most unsettling concerns precisely this: how totalitarian systems are not always immediately visible or recognizable in everyday life. Their effects are often unevenly distributed, operating quietly, beneath the radar. So much so, the women argue, that most Russians don’t experience them directly—or have been persuaded by state media that they are living under conditions of normalcy.

That fragile sense of normalcy begins to fracture in the second half, which opens with news of the invasion of Ukraine. Not for everyone—state-controlled media maintains a firm grip on the narrative, framing the war as a battle against Ukrainian “neo-Nazis” and insisting it is supported locally—but certainly for those who oppose the government, and especially for those with a public platform in the few outlets still attempting to offer alternative perspectives. Very quickly, the protagonists see their rights further curtailed—through arrests, threats, and escalating forms of intimidation—and begin to realize that exile may be their only remaining option, however painful. Staying would mean continuing under censorship, with no real means of expressing their views.

“I used to have a country. I don’t anymore,” one of them says, with a mix of sorrow and frustration, as if trying to convince herself that leaving Russia is the only viable path—at least until the political climate shifts. Even amid fear, loss, and desperation—bank accounts frozen, visas denied, exit routes closed off—the women still find space for humor and camaraderie. They drift into conversations about Harry Potter, remain constantly—perhaps excessively, at times—engaged with social media, and keep up with Instagram and TikTok trends. Loktev does not conceal this somewhat naïve, distinctly Westernized side of her subjects (one worries about whether Taylor Swift is getting married; another about a TV show), placing it in perspective: beyond being journalists pushing against the limits of what they are allowed to report, they are also ordinary young women, with recognizable tastes, anxieties, and a sense of humor (“Nike doesn’t exist anymore,” one jokes. “Now it’s called Nikolai.”).

While its five-plus-hour runtime occasionally leads to repetition and an overabundance of talk, the film builds a powerful cumulative effect. Its strength lies in the day-to-day observation, in the gradual realization—shared by both the protagonists and the viewer—of how the situation darkens, becoming increasingly untenable with each passing day. In the weeks following the invasion, the women—and the outlets they work for—are systematically targeted by repression and restrictions on press freedom, justified by the government’s insistence that they are agents serving foreign interests.

Almost inadvertently, Loktev found herself documenting something far more consequential than originally planned. That is why My Undesirable Friends has evolved into an ambitious, long-term project. This first installment, spanning five episodes and five and a half hours, will soon be followed by a Part II, which will revisit these characters in the aftermath of the events depicted here. Given the ongoing political shifts—not only in Russia—it seems clear that conditions will continue to deteriorate for them. And, in a broader sense, perhaps for all of us, wherever we may be. In that regard, Loktev’s film stands as a precise reflection of a hyperconnected world that is, at the same time, increasingly subject to control—whether political or economic. The ending of this story, for now, remains unwritten.