Excerpt from the film 'My Undesirable Friends: Part I.' NOVAÏA GAZETA
In front of each soldier, a candle. "This flame lighting up their faces is a tribute to those who perished, but also a symbol of mourning for the purity of soul lost in combat," explained Anna Artemeva.
Across Russia − in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and as far as the remote reaches of the Urals − this renowned journalist spent five months meeting soldiers and volunteers who had returned from the war that has been waged by the Kremlin in Ukraine for nearly the past four years. She and her colleague Ivan Jiline read on social media the testimonies of hundreds of fighters who, wounded, had come home. They reached out to them. The majority declined to speak with the two journalists from Novaïa Gazeta, one of the last independent media outlets still managing to report from Russia despite repression and censorship.
Eighteen men agreed to speak, openly and with their faces visible, lit only by the dim glow of a candle – the leitmotif of the film My Undesirable Friends: Part I − Last Air in Moscow. Having been carefully self-censored to formally comply with ever-more repressive laws on freedom of expression, the documentary allows the men to speak for themselves, with no outside commentary. Far from the sanitized reporting of Kremlin-controlled television, this lengthy and stark account provides vital insight into the state of the troops.
