On Journalism's End in Russia

The 98th Academy Awards brought a big win, as Mr. Nobody against Putin put regional Russian schools in the international spotlight. Yet it was not the only noteworthy film about Russia to be considered for the Best Documentary Feature award. Its shortlisted competition included a five-and-a-half-hour documentary following a group of young Russian journalists in the year leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and immediately after.

Although ultimately not nominated, My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow is  a remarkable record of a community of creative professionals who thrived during years of relative media freedoms in the country, but ultimately could not survive the increasingly harsh surveillance and prosecution.

Each of the 334 minutes is filled with anxiety. Director Julia Loktev’s shaky camerawork quietly places us in the car alongside Anna Nemzer (from TV Rain) as she commutes between work and her daughter’s school, or in the bugged apartment of a co-worker. A buzz on the intercom could be a takeout delivery or an apartment raid.

Despite knowing hostile ears are listening to their every conversation, the team at TV Rain is loud when discussing their growing concern for Russia’s future and their own fate within it.

The film was captured between 2021 and mid-2022, when the pandemic was still a reality. Surveillance technology, including facial scanning in public places, had been introduced to curb the spread of COVID-19. Nemzer points out how tightening restrictions on people’s movement and journalism work hand in hand, by identifying and tracking people in criminal cases, as a result of pandemic precautions.

We watch as each Friday, TV Rain staff gather in the office to witness the release of weekly lists of foreign agents and undesirable organizations. Gradually, the disclaimers airing alongside "agents" names become more frequent and widespread, as more and more names are listed. A single message permeates each Rain broadcast, intertwining itself with troubling reports on the preparations of large-scale military operations and tightening repression and censorship within the country: “This material was produced, distributed, or directed by a foreign agent… or concerns the activities of a foreign agent…”

"My Undesirable Friends" feels like a successor to F@ck This Job, a 2021 documentary detailing Natalya Sindeyeva’s launch of TV Rain in 2010. Both documentaries offer behind-the-scenes looks at the independent news channel grappling for survival with foreign agent status. Yet My Undesirable Friends also shows the realities many staff members faced outside the office. It gives a glimpse into Russian homes before and during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Nemzer’s stress-baking and dinner parties seem like an attempt at normalcy, showing her determination to stay in Russia until it is no longer possible. By mid-2022, all journalists profiled in the film had left Russia.

Admittedly, the film’s extraordinary length means it is unlikely many people will see and hear the journalists’ stories. Regardless, the departure of Nemzer and others from Russia is a temporary bookend, one that painfully answers the disclaimer attached to foreign agents’ reports by ultimately silencing a voice in Russia.