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The Best Doc of the Year Is Like a 5.5 Hour-Long Panic Attack


Julia Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends drops you into a group of independent Russian journalists in the last months before the invasion of Ukraine.

Anna Nemzer, a whippet-thin woman with a black bob and a face that resembles Jodie Comer’s, is one of the anchors at Rain, hosting a show in which she talks to activists and dissidents about their work and what, in the country, needs to change. Loktev makes her way into various apartments for commiserative gatherings and holiday celebrations — the midpoint of My Undesirable Friends is a delirious New Year’s party — where her hosts inevitably mention that their places are certainly bugged. My Undesirable Friends begins with Anna, but by the final chapter, its focus has drifted to Ksyusha, a painful young Rain employee whose reporter fiancee, Ivan, has been imprisoned for over a year.

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