PMA Films: My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile (Chapters 4–5)

Directed by Julia Loktev. 164 minutes. Not Rated. In Russian with English subtitles.

NOTE: This film screens in two parts, with the first installment screening on Saturday, November 21 at noon. The documentary can be thoroughly appreciated without having seen My Undesirable Friends: Part I beforehand.

A group of young journalists flee Moscow when Russia invades Ukraine and shuts down all independent media, turning telling the truth into a crime. Just days before, they were working as part of a vibrant opposition community. Now they’re part of a historic exodus. They leave with a few hours’ notice, carry-on suitcases, and no idea what country they can go to next that will let them stay and keep working. They must quickly get back on their feet to report on the biggest story of their lives, a war they all fiercely oppose. Intimate and immersive, the film sweeps across four years and a dozen countries. The complex, razor sharp and often very funny women — and a few men — gather in apartments that feel like waystations and borrowed offices before being uprooted yet again. They work to bring Russians an alternative to propaganda, speaking out against their country’s war crimes and wrestling with personal moral accountability, even as Russia menaces them with criminal prosecution back home and physical threats abroad. Relying on dark humor to get through dark times, they keep working for the uncertain future of a country they may not return to for decades. As the years pass in exile, they have to redefine what work, family, friendship, love and home mean when you can’t go home.