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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
On NPR's Wildcard podcast, Oprah on the art of being alone. Are you good at being alone?
Oh, my God. I'm a master at it.
Tell me more.
I cherish it. I revel in it. I can't wait to be alone.
Watch or listen to that Wildcard conversation on the NPR app or on YouTube at NPR Wildcard. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Four years ago, filmmaker Julia Lochtev landed in Moscow to investigate the revival of an old Kremlin weapon, the label Foreign Agent, a phrase with deep roots in Soviet-era repression.
It was being applied not only to organizations, but to reporters, bloggers, and human rights groups that had spent decades documenting political persecution. Armed with an iPhone, Lakhtov embedded herself among a group of young journalists working for TV Rain, Russia's last independent television channel, as well as other independent journalists who were deemed foreign agents.
The result is My Undesirable Friends, Part 1, Last Air in Moscow. a five and a half hour documentary that has swept major critics awards and stand as a record of what it looks like when dissent is slowly criminalized in real time. Here's Julia Lochtev describing how she first entered that world.
The world you're about to see no longer exists. None of us knew what was about to happen. Four months before Russia started a full-scale war in Ukraine, I came to Moscow to make a film with my friend Anya. Anya was a host at TV Rain, Russia's last remaining independent news channel. In the fall of 2021, it was still allowed to operate online, which is unimaginable now.
By the end of that year, the Kremlin labeled more than 100 individuals and outlets as foreign agents. Those designated were required to stamp government disclaimers on everything they published, even personal social media posts, with penalties that could include steep fines or imprisonment.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of Julia Loktev's documentary 'My Undesirable Friends'?
Paul, Minnesota, a case that has drawn sharp criticism from press freedom advocates. Julia Lochte was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States at age nine. Her filmmaking, across documentary and fiction, focuses on people living through history as it unfolds, often capturing private moments inside systems of power that are closing in.
Her previous films include Moment of Impact, Day Night, Day Night, and The Loneliest Planet. Julia Lochte, welcome to Fresh Air, and thank you for this film. It is sobering, but... A Necessary Watch.
Hi. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Well, you know, we're talking to each other just days after two American journalists were arrested by federal agents for covering a protest in Minnesota. And the first thing I thought about was you and this documentary and how unnervingly timely it is that we are speaking right now. What was your reaction when you first heard the news?
Chapter 3: How did the label 'Foreign Agent' impact journalists in Russia?
I mean, it's my reaction as I keep hearing news after news after news. Every day it feels like there is something to bring the story home for Americans where it almost feels like there's, I hate to put it this way, but it's strangely like there's Easter eggs in the film that become more and more relevant every day. whether it's arrests of journalists, obviously.
I mean, small, like throwaways, like somebody talks about the end of comedy shows. Or there's a moment where Russia's largest, oldest NGO, Memorial, which is a human rights organization that was dedicated to to preserving the memory and researching cases of political repression, going back to Stalinist times, but also now. And they're shut down by the courts.
And the judge uses the explanation of why should we, the victors in World War II, have to be ashamed of our history? And so then I hear, you know, Trump talking about the Smithsonian and saying, why can't we talk about, you know, Only the pleasant things in our history. Why do we have to talk about things like slavery?
Chapter 4: What challenges did independent journalists face before the invasion of Ukraine?
And this constant echo where one thing after another every day, it feels like something in the film starts to resonate in a different way here for the U.S.
Take me back to 2021. You are home here in the United States. But you're watching something unfold in Russia. Independent journalists are being labeled foreign agents by the government. And at that point, there were, I think it was around 25 people on the list. What made you think at the time, I need to get on a plane, there is possibly a film here?
Yeah, this is a film where the conception to execution was just a matter of a couple weeks. And I think the only delay was me getting a tourist visa to Russia because I'm an American citizen and not a Russian citizen. So as you mentioned, I was born in Russia. I came to the U.S. as a kid. But I still followed news of what was happening in Russia. And there was this New York Times story about
that I think the headline was something along the lines of Russian journalists getting named foreign agents and fighting back with humor. And I think the humor was also part of what caught me in the beginning, you know, because it had this photo of these two very –
familiar to me looking girls that could have been walking down the street in Bushwick, frankly, you know, and, you know, with mom jeans and some cool t-shirts and except they happen to be foreign agents. And Russia was declaring these individual journalists as well as media foreign agents. And it had just started. So, for example, like
If I was declared a foreign agent, then I would have to put this on everything, you know, not just my articles, but you'd have to introduce me. This is Julia, a foreign agent. If I put a cat picture on my Instagram, I'd have to put this is by a foreign agent, you know.
And it was more than just I'm a foreign agent. It's like a paragraph in big, bold letters, depending on what the platform that you're on.
Absolutely. I mean, it was this very legalistic – exactly. The summary was I'm a foreign agent, but it was in legalistic terms, you know, saying like this has been created and or distributed by a source of mass media, a foreign agent carrying out the function of a – you know, it was in very legalistic terms.
And, for example, if I was a foreign agent and you were introducing me on this show, you would also have to state this because if you didn't say I was a foreign agent, you'd get a fine and eventually jail. I mean, everyone was trying to figure out what on earth does this mean for us?
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Chapter 5: What led Julia Loktev to document the lives of young Russian journalists?
But at the time, it was really new. And I had a friend, Anna Nyamzor, who was a host at what was Russia's last remaining TV channel, TV Rain. If you saw the Navalny film, for example, much of the footage you're seeing is TV Rain. It's the kind of thing where everybody tuned in. Alexei Navalny, yes. Yeah, Alexei Navalny. It was this kind of center of the opposition.
And my friend Anna had just started this incredible show called Who's Got the Power, where under an authoritarian government, she was focusing on people who were trying to make lives better for someone, whether it be people with disabilities, people
The homeless population focusing on press freedoms, but various activists and civil rights leaders who were trying to create a different kind of politics under this government. And we thought it was quite disturbing, you know, when a society forces members of the society to mark themselves everywhere as criminals. Suspect not really belonging to this society as foreign agents.
But it had just really started, and we said, okay, let's try to make a film about this. Let's see where this goes.
And it was all happening so fast once you arrived there, though, that you shot most of it on your iPhone. 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.
Yeah, I had initially had this idea that I would have a cinematographer because, I don't know, I thought, you know, I would shoot it in a normal way, like the way you're supposed to shoot documentaries, you know, with... a little bit of a crew.
But then as soon as I arrived, it was so clear that the best thing that I had was my access to people and also kind of how comfortable people seem to feel with me. You know, I speak native Russian, but I also, I don't know, it's just one body in the room and people really opened up to me. And also people are used to being filmed in With a phone, like the presence of phones is not a big deal.
I did have a little, eventually got a little lens on my phone and a little microphone, but it was just really me with a phone. And I think that so affects how people behave because they just, there's an intimacy to the film. And that's what you see is it's not like a normal documentary with interviews and, you know.
It's a slice of life and in real time that we're seeing in this moment. 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?
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Chapter 6: How did the full-scale invasion of Ukraine change the landscape for journalists in Russia?
But they kept getting more and more threats. Eventually, all these media would get shut down. And they were facing this choice of literally, do we go to work tomorrow? Or do we go to the airport? And they decided to go to the airport because the logic went, if they keep working, they really risked being thrown in jail. And if you're in jail, you're not much use to anyone as a journalist.
You can't report from jail. And so they made the choice to leave so they could keep reporting.
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?
It's interesting because I think I thought about my own safety more when I first started coming to Russia. And then during that first week of the full-scale invasion, I became monomaniacal. The only thing I could think of was my footage and getting it out and making sure I was capturing things and making sure I was filming. I mean, Brittany Griner had just gotten arrested.
But I was like, well, I'm not a famous basketball player, you know. It's that thing you do where you logically try to explain to yourself why, you know, you'll be okay. And I really just, you know, I was staying in this hotel that was literally surrounded. Like every time I walked out, I had to walk past this wall of riot police and helmets, you know.
So I would just kind of keep my head down and go to wherever I needed to go to film. And most of the time I was filming in private places. You know, people, the whole film takes place
In their living rooms, in newsrooms, in their cars. You were in the car a lot of the time.
Exactly. The film takes place where we spend our lives, which is, you know, at work, at home, and on the way from one to the other. And at other people's homes, it's really where people spend most of their lives, so I met them where they were. But where I felt most at risk, honestly, was every time I went to their workplace, especially in that first week, because...
many of these newsrooms, you know, I mean, some of them were bugged. There were journalists at some of these outlets that had been killed. A lot of them were taking great risks. There'd been searches. And so especially during that first week of the full-scale war when there was so much pressure and I was afraid every time I was there.
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