SCREENING IN THE BERNARD OSHER FOUNDATION AUDITORIUM
“It is perhaps the most essential investment of time you can make in a movie theater this year. And yet it is not just “important” or consequential — it is brilliant, riveting, vital, devastating.”
197 minutes. Not Rated. Directed by Julia Loktev. In Russian with English subtitles. DCP.
My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow is a documentary that runs 323 minutes. This screening will only contain the first three chapters of the film. The remaining two chapters will screen on Sunday, December 21 at 3 p.m. A full viewing of the film (with two 10-minute intermissions) will screen on Wednesday, December 17 at noon.
Moscow, winter 2021: At TV Rain, the only remaining independent channel, young journalists have been branded “foreign agents”— targeted for surveillance or worse, and required to tag their reporting with a disclaimer that they are serving foreign powers. Regardless: Ksyusha furiously produces and edits stories to distract herself from her fellow-journalist fiancé’s imprisonment; Anya hosts everyday heroes of resistance on her interview show, while shielding both her sanity and her young daughter from the regime’s relentless “fuckery”; Sonya produces the “Hi, You’re a Foreign Agent” podcast at her kitchen table while beholding her empty living room (why buy a sofa when who knows what will happen to her?); Alesya fends off anxiety that her office has been bugged, while hiding her relationship with her girlfriend from her traditional mother. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is just weeks away, as these Gen-Z heroines confront propagandist absurdity and personal endangerment, fighting for the soul of a country they love to the bitter end. An extraordinary historic record and an immersive and intimate inside view of the opposition in an authoritarian society, which becomes all the more globally relevant every day.
ADDITIONAL SCREENINGS:
Wednesday, December 17 at 12 p.m. (Full screening)
Sunday, December 21 at 3 p.m. (Chapter 4-5 only)