Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on March 23, 2026 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Harriman Institute and the Department of Slavic Languages for the second of a two-night screening of Julia Loktev’s film “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow.” This screening will be followed by a discussion with journalists and the film’s two protagonists, Kseniia Mironova and Anna Nemzer. Moderated by Liza Senatorova and Mark Lipovetsky.
“My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow” is an award-winning five-and-a-half-hour documentary whose filming began in Moscow in October 2021. Divided into five chapters, the film follows journalists from the independent news station TV Rain (Dozhd), who were labeled “foreign agents” by the Russian government for reporting news content that diverged from the official state narrative. What started as a portrait of independent media journalism under the escalating pressure of Putin’s regime gradually transformed into a historical artifact, capturing the atmosphere of anxiety and chaos during the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The film will be in Russian with English subtitles.
Julia Loktev is an American filmmaker born in the Soviet Union. Throughout her career, she has worked in both documentary and narrative cinema, earning widespread critical acclaim and numerous awards. These include the Documentary Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival for Moment of Impact (1998), the Prix Regard Jeune at the Cannes Film Festival for Day Night Day Night (2006), and the Grand Jury Prize at AFI Fest in Los Angeles for The Loneliest Planet (2011). Her award-winning documentary “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow” premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2024, followed by its international premiere at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival in 2025. The film was also shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature at the 98th Academy Awards. Julia Loktev is currently working on the second part of the film, which will focus on Russian independent journalists who fled Russia and are navigating their lives in exile after February 2022.
Please register here for the first night (Chapters 1-3) of screenings.
Please email disability@columbia.edu to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.
