If her epic, Oscar-shortlisted documentary “My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 — Last Air In Moscow” pulled off an astonishing feat, chronicling the last gasps of press freedom in Vladimir Putin’s Russia in real time, docmaker Julia Loktev somehow manages to raise the stakes in the film’s arresting sequel.
Premiering out of competition in the Venice Open strand of the Venice Film Festival, “My Undesirable Friends: Part 2 — Exile” offers a remarkable bookend to its predecessor. Following “Last Air’s” subjects in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Loktev offers an intimate portrait of journalists under threat as they flee their homeland and attempt to rebuild their shattered lives abroad.
Speaking to Variety over Zoom, Loktev unpacks the relationship between the two films while insisting the second part is “a much more complex story.”
“It takes place over four and a half years versus four and a half months,” she says. “And it’s a much more emotional story. It’s people who have had to leave their country on a moment’s notice.”
Beginning in the fall of 2021, the first chapter of Loktev’s documentary epic charted the months leading up to the Ukraine invasion. Part two begins just two days later with her subjects in flight, some leaving Moscow within hours of learning that their employer, TV Rain, the independent news station that had been designated an “undesirable organization” by the Kremlin, was set to be raided by the police.
