Soviet-born American filmmaker Julia Loktev (The Loneliest Planet, Day Night Day Night) came to Moscow in 2021 to make a film about independent journalists being declared “foreign agents” by Putin’s regime—as it turns out, just four months before Russia started a full-scale war in Ukraine. With her friend Anna Nemzer, a talk show host at TV Rain (Russia’s last remaining independent news channel) Loktev brings us into a community of sharp, warm, and funny young women speaking truth to power as they face increasing threats. Loktev filmed in Moscow during the first week of the full-scale invasion, as the journalists tried to counter Russian propaganda and report the truth on the war, until all independent media was shut down and they were forced to flee the country.

Structured in five chapters, feeling like a cross between a Russian novel and a reality show about frighteningly real reality, Loktev’s film is an extraordinary historic record of a country on the verge of fascism and an immersive and intimate inside view of the opposition in an authoritarian society, which becomes all the more globally relevant every day.

Runtime of 5 hours and 44 minutes. All screenings presented with a 20-minute intermission.