MUBI, the global distributor and streaming service, unveiled the trailer and poster for the acclaimed documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part I–Last Air in Moscow, which airs exclusively on MUBI April 3, 2026.
The follow up, My Undesirable Friends: Part II–Exile will also premiere on MUBI later this year.
Directed and produced by Soviet-born American filmmaker Julia Loktev (The Loneliest Planet, Day Night Day Night), My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow had its world premiere at New York Film Fest and played at the Berlin Film Fest in 2025.
Set in Moscow, winter 2021, it follows filmmaker Julia Loktev as she travels to Russia to document independent journalists declared “foreign agents” by Putin’s regime.
Through her friend and co-director Anna Nemzer, a talkshow host at TV Rain—the country’s last remaining independent channel—Loktev connects with young women who refuse to stop reporting despite legal persecution.
Ksyusha produces stories while her fellow journalist fiancé sits in prison. Anna hosts everyday heroes of resistance, while trying to shield her daughter from the escalating threats. Sonya records her “Hi, You’re a Foreign Agent” podcast from her kitchen table, her apartment deliberately bare.
Alesya conceals her relationship from her traditional mother while suspecting–with good reason–that her office is bugged.
Four months later, in February 2022, Russia launches its invasion of Ukraine. Loktev captures the journalists’ attempts to counter state propaganda until all independent media is shut down and exile becomes the only viable option.
Structured across five chapters, the film unfolds as sort of a thriller, yet defined by a good dosage of humor as most of the definat women are not only bright but also funny in ther observations.
A portrait of dissentful journalists risking their lives for what they belive in, the docu bridges dimensions of personal intimacy with urgency that is both historucal and contemporary as the status of the profession is at greater risk than it ever was before.
Oscar-shortlisted and winner of the Critics’ Choice Award at the International Documentary Film Fest Amsterdam (IDFA), My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, offers a powerful chronicle of defiant opposition, one that’s highly relevant at the moment, in totalitarian and even democratic societies.
Both parts are directed, produced, and shot as a one-woman crew by Loktev with protagonist and co-director Anna Nemzer, and co-edited by Loktev and long-time collaborator Michael Taylor (The Farewell).
About Julia Loktev
Julia Loktev was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of nine. She has made both fiction and non-fiction work.
The Loneliest Planet, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, screened at the New York Film Festival, received nominations for Best Director at Independent Spirit Awards, and Best Feature at Gotham Awards.
Day Night Day Night premiered at the Cannes Film Fest, in the Directors’ Fortnight section, received two Gotham Awards nominations, and earned the Someone to Watch Award at Independent Spirit Awards.
Her documentary Moment of Impact won the Sundance Film Fest Documentary Directing Award and screened in New Directors/New Films at MoMA, and was an Independent Spirit Awards Truer Than Fiction nominee.
