# Venice: ‘My Undesirable Friends’ Director on Epic Documentary About Death of Press Freedom in Russia, How Putin’s Crackdown Is Warning for U.S.

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/venice-my-undesirable-friends-director-on-epic-documentary-about-death-of-press-freedom-in-russia-how-putins-crackdown-is-warning-for-u-s/
- Published: 2026-09-05T04:05:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-09-05T04:15:22+00:00
- Original publisher: Variety
- Original article: https://variety.com/2026/film/global/venice-my-undesirable-friends-documentary-press-freedom-russia-1236849120/
- Topics: Art, Business, Culture, Europe, Markets, World

## Key points

- Loktev's Venice documentary follows exiled Russian journalists after Ukraine invasion
- Sequel to Oscar-shortlisted film spans 4.5 years, 10 chapters, shot on iPhone
- Director sees parallels between Putin's press crackdown and US civil liberties concerns

## Summary

Julia Loktev's documentary "My Undesirable Friends: Part 2 — Exile" premieres out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, continuing her real-time chronicle of independent Russian journalists as they flee Vladimir Putin's regime following the invasion of Ukraine. The film serves as a sequel to the Oscar-shortlisted "Last Air in Moscow" and captures the human cost of Russia's crackdown on press freedom, with Loktev drawing pointed parallels to civil liberties concerns under the current Trump administration in the United States.

Filmed largely on an iPhone X, the sprawling project spans nearly 12 hours across 10 chapters and covers four and a half years, beginning just two days after the full invasion when journalists at independent broadcaster TV Rain fled Moscow following the station's designation as an "undesirable organisation". Loktev follows her subjects as they rebuild scattered lives in cities including Istanbul, Amsterdam, Prague and New York, describing their experience as a "strange nomadic existence" marked by fear and resilience, and says the documentary evolved from an intended study of "foreign agent" journalists into an unplanned record of history in the making.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.