{"id":947546,"date":"2026-10-27T00:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T00:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/947546\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T00:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T00:46:11","slug":"my-undesirable-friends-director-julia-loktev-at-art-of-the-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/947546\/","title":{"rendered":"‘My Undesirable Friends’ Director Julia Loktev at Art of the Doc"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great documentaries never turn out quite the way you plan them. You might start out thinking that you\u2019re making one film<\/a>, but a documentarian has to be willing to accept when changes in the lives of their subjects changes the nature of their project.<\/p>\n

Julia Loktev<\/a>\u2018s two-part<\/a> documentary<\/a> \u201cMy Undesirable Friends<\/a>\u201d is a perfect example of this. The films, which follow journalists at TV Rain, which was Russia\u2019s last independent news channel before it was shut down over coverage of the war in Ukraine, began as a story about journalists working in a hostile climate. But when her subjects were forced to flee the country and scatter across Europe, \u201cMy Undesirable Friends\u201d had to expand its scale.<\/p>\n

\"Wildwood\"<\/a> \"'Superman,'<\/a> <\/p>\n

During a conversation with IndieWire\u2019s Chris O\u2019Falt at our Art of the Doc<\/a> event, Loktev opened up about the project\u2019s origins. While she had already been shooting footage of her subjects, the films truly took shape the week Russia invaded Ukraine. <\/p>\n

\u201cNeither of these two films were supposed to happen,\u201d Loktev said. \u201cI just started making a film that I thought was gonna be called \u2018The Lives of Foreign Agents\u2019 about these young journalists that were being called foreign agents. And the media were being called undesirable organizations. Of course, what we didn\u2019t know was that four and a half months later, Russia would start a full scale war with Ukraine and shut down all independent media within that first week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Part II\u2019 starts right after all these journalists were forced to leave the country,\u201d she continued. \u201cPutin calls them the flies that Russia spits out of its mouth. But that first week was terrifying. Nobody could imagine invading Ukraine. The war had been going for eight years, but it was the kind of year where the world allowed Russia to host a world cup\u2026 All of these journalists tried to report the truth to Russians, and up until that moment they were living in Russia. Maybe you were waiting for the police to show up at your office or your home, maybe friends of yours were being arrested, but you could still work in Russia. And then that stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the complete conversation with Loktev in the video above.<\/p>\n

National Geographic Documentary Films, part of a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the National Geographic Society, is committed to bringing the world premium, feature documentaries that cover timely, provocative and globally relevant stories from the very best documentary filmmakers. Its award-winning and critically acclaimed films reach 300 million people worldwide in 180 countries and 33 languages across the global National Geographic channels and direct-to-consumer platforms Disney+ and Hulu.<\/p>\n

Recent films include the Emmy-nominated winner of the IDA Award for Best Feature \u201cThe Tale of Silyan;\u201d Oscar\u00ae and Peabody nominee \u201cSugarcane;\u201d Oscar-nominated and Peabody Award winner \u201cBobi Wine: The People\u2019s President;\u201d Emmy Award winner \u201cLost In The Jungle;\u201d Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated \u201cFire of Love;\u201d Emmy and Peabody Award winner \u201cThe Territory;\u201d BAFTA nominees \u201cThe Rescue\u201d and \u201cBecoming Cousteau;\u201d and Oscar- and BAFTA winner \u201cFree Solo.\u201d For more information visit films.nationalgeographic.com<\/a>, or find us on Facebook<\/a>,Twitter<\/a>,Instagram<\/a>, and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n