Tanya Mosley

I mean, you really said, okay, I really need to get as close to this as possible.

And you pulled out your iPhone, and we're talking hours and hours over a span of time just using your phone primarily.

It's a slice of life and in real time that we're seeing in this moment.

I want to talk a little bit more, but first, let's take a short break.

If you're just joining us, my guest is filmmaker Julia Laktiv.

Her documentary film, My Undesirable Friends, Part One, last air in Moscow, is about independent Russian journalists in the months leading up to and immediately after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

We'll continue our conversation after a short break.

I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

You know, Julia, I think there's an assumption for some listeners that Russia has always, to a certain extent, been a closed society when it comes to the press, that independent journalism was never really possible there.

But that's not exactly true, right?

I mean, can you give us a picture of what the media landscape actually looked like before this crackdown?

And then it became to a certain point where it wasn't even just about the journalism anymore.

It was about their lives.

And essentially...

fleeing for their lives because there was no way that they could do their work or have a life in Russia after the war started.

Take me to your frame of mind as a filmmaker, because here they are grabbing carry-ons, no idea where they're going, headed to airports.

What was going through your mind about your own safety as you captured this chaos?

In their living rooms, in newsrooms, in their cars.

You were in the car a lot of the time.

I want to go back a little bit because I actually want to talk about the journalists themselves.