Interview With "My Undesirable Friends: Part II - Exile" Filmmaker Julia Loktev

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SPEAKER_2 (0:59)

You are listening to The Next Best Picture Podcast, and this is Cody Derrick's interview with the director for My Undesirable Friends, Part II, Exile, Julia Loktev.

SPEAKER_3 (1:10)

We have all described in detail and carefully how Russia is being attacked by fascism for many years. The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scoundrels and traitors, and just spit them out like a fly, spit them out on the floor.

Cody Derrick (1:26)

All right, I have Julia Loktev, the director of the incredible new documentary, My Undesirable Friends, Part II, Exile with me today. Julia, how are you doing today?

Julia Loktev (1:36)

Good, how are you? Thanks for having me. Good, thanks.

Cody Derrick (1:39)

Of course. So I am here to talk to you about the part two of this series, of this expansive two-part series.

Julia Loktev (1:49)

Series is what the distinction is, but that's what we'll-

Cody Derrick (1:52)

I was going to get into that because I was curious to see where you drew the line as the filmmaker, but we'll get into that in a second.

I just want to start out because it's hard for me to watch these films, especially Part II, as an American and not draw parallels to my own country, our country, with Part I feeling like the build up to an oppressive regime and Part II reflecting what life is actually like under one, especially for those who worked to try and prevent it. So to start out, I don't want to go so far as to have you explain your purpose in making these, but do you view your films as as much of a warning as they are in archive?

Julia Loktev (2:34)

Look, I started out making a film about what felt to me, even though I'm originally from Russia, but I left as a child. I've lived in the States since I was nine. I grew up in Colorado. I started out making a film about something that felt to most people like a faraway place and nasty things happening over there where journalists get named foreign agents and get targeted, and it seemed like this was deep in the Biden era. This seemed very distant then.

Of course, unfortunately, the film has become more and more relevant in the US. I mean, obviously, what did Trump say? I have to keep looking up the lovely thing he said the other day, that there's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories, which is how I think he's gotten a little bit confused between the difference between journalism and public relations. And I didn't expect it to be a film that is so relevant and keeps becoming more and more relevant for people internationally.

Cody Derrick (3:37)

So speaking to this cadre of reporters that you've talked to across the two films, just to back up a little bit, how well did you know the reporters before you started filming them, if at all? And what was it like forming a more pronounced bond with them over such a long period of filming?

Julia Loktev (3:55)

Yeah, I've now spent five years making these two movies. And I think you can see Exile as a separate film and watch it, you know, without watching Last Air in Moscow, you can enter it at that moment.

I knew one of the, one of the protagonists, Anya, when I started making the film in Moscow.

And then she took me around and like introduced me to her colleagues and friends. And they immediately kind of form, we formed connections independently. It's kind of like you go somewhere, someone introduces you and now you have new friends. And of course, now I've accompanied them over five years of the toughest years of their life. What I didn't know when I started filming them is that, you know, four months later, they'd be fleeing their country in a matter of hours with a carry on suitcase.