'More relevant every day' in the U.S.: A filmmaker documented Russia's journalists

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. Four years ago, filmmaker Julia Loktev 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, Loktev 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 I - Last Air In Moscow," a 5 1/2-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 Loktev describing how she first entered that world.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART I - LAST AIR IN MOSCOW")

JULIA LOKTEV: 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.

MOSLEY: By the end of that year, the Kremlin labeled more than a hundred 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. The film has arrived in the United States at a moment when questions about press freedom and the risks of reporting in politically charged spaces feel newly present here, too. Just last week, journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested by federal agents after covering a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, a case that has drawn sharp criticism from press freedom advocates.

Julia Loktev was born in Russia and emigrated to the United States at age 9. 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 Loktev, welcome to FRESH AIR. And thank you for this film. It is sobering but a necessary watch.

LOKTEV: Hi. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

MOSLEY: 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?

LOKTEV: 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 an human rights organization that was dedicated 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? 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.

MOSLEY: 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's possibly a film here?

LOKTEV: Yeah. This is a film where the conception to execution was just a matter of a couple weeks, and I think the only really - 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, you know, news of what was happening in Russia. And there was this New York Times story 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 happened 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.

MOSLEY: And it was more than just, I'm a foreign agent. It's, like, a paragraph in big bold letters, depending on where you're - what - the platform that you're on.

LOKTEV: 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? And there were so few people. As you said, it's kind of hard to imagine because right now there are hundreds - hundreds of foreign agents. But at the time, it was really new. And I had a friend, Anna Nemzer, 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.

MOSLEY: Alexei Navalny. Yes.

LOKTEV: 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 (ph)," 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, 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 suspect, not really belonging to the society, as foreign agents. But it had just really started, and we said, OK, let's try to make a film about this. Let's see where this goes.

MOSLEY: And it was all happening so fast once you arrive there, though, that you shot most of it on your iPhone. I mean, you really said, OK, 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.

LOKTEV: Yeah. I had initially had this idea that I would have a cinematographer 'cause 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 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 the 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?

MOSLEY: It's a slice of life 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 Loktev. Her documentary film, "My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 - 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. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE AMERICAN ANALOG SET'S "IMMACULATE HEART II")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and today, we're talking to filmmaker Julia Loktev, director of "My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 - Last Air In Moscow."

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?

LOKTEV: No, absolutely. It's, you know, there was - it's kind of amazing before this crackdown what was possible. There were reporters - there were a lot of reporters focusing on corruption. You know, government officials who were channeling huge amounts of money towards their mistress' yacht or things like this. You know, it's all interconnected. And they were writing about this out in the open and obviously writing about social issues and human rights out in the open. And the fact that all of this was possible is kind of unimaginable now because, you know, at that point, Russia had initially invaded Ukraine in 2014. Obviously, there's been a low-scale war happening there, but nothing of the kind of war that has been happening since February of 2022 - bombing Kyiv, tanks rolling in. The kind of war that we've been seeing was utterly, utterly unimaginable when I started filming and it was utterly unimaginable until the morning it happened. And so we're watching for most of the film, these characters, and we know what happens. We know Russia starts this full-scale invasion, but they don't. They don't know what's about to happen because what ends up happening is in that first week of the full-scale war, all that independent journalism becomes impossible in Russia. And all of these characters try to work to live another day, to just keep reporting the truth. I mean, it's things like calling the war a war is illegal in Russia.

MOSLEY: 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.

LOKTEV: So I was there filming during the first week of that full-scale war, and every day, they were trying to figure out how do we get to report tomorrow. And there were all these restrictions being put on them. Like, the Russian - the communications authority said they had to only report what is confirmed by the Ministry of Defense. And they would find all these ways around it, you know, like they would be showing an apartment building bombed in Ukraine. And then they would say, you know, after, they would say, we are obligated to say that the Russian Ministry of Defense says it is only bombing military targets when, clearly, we have just been shown that they are bombing an apartment building, not a military target. And then they would find all these other ways to try to, again, just to live to another day to be able to report the truth to Russians. And they came out with a statement against the war. All of them were extremely against this and horrified.

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 risk 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.

MOSLEY: 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?

LOKTEV: 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, Brittney 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 OK. 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 these - this wall of riot police in 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...

MOSLEY: In their living rooms, and in newsrooms, in their cars. You were in the car a lot of the time.

LOKTEV: 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 had 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, you know? I thought, anything can happen at any moment while they're sitting there trying to report on the news. But then I sort of thought - you know what? - they're coming to work here. They're taking that risk. This is the risk they're facing every day just to come and report on the news. So I just need to shut up and film.

MOSLEY: I want to go back a little bit because I actually want to talk about the journalists themselves. I mean, you mentioned how they were young journalists, 20s and 30s, most of them women. They seemed to be highly accomplished, highly skilled. What were their backgrounds? Anya, for instance, tell us a little bit about her. She's sort of the protagonist in this, the person that you're following throughout. And then you have these intersecting journalists that you're also checking in with.

LOKTEV: Well, Anya starts out as really like almost our guide into the world. She was the one person I knew. And it kind of feels like you have this brilliant friend in Moscow. You go to visit her, and then she introduces you to all these other friends. She's also the oldest of our characters, even though she's also quite young. But she is just incredibly talented. She's a novelist. She's a writer. Now she's an archivist, a journalist. She just is so multitalented and had worked across different things. And, you know, she comes from this intellectual Moscow family, where her father was a Solzhenitsyn scholar, and she comes from this.

And then some of the characters are super young. Our youngest character, Susha (ph), she's 23. You know, she's not that far out of journalism school, to be honest, because, you know, part of how this works is we very specifically did not try to choose, like, the most famous, the most illustrious journalists in Russia. We wanted to have this be about just ordinary people who were trying to create a better world in this society. And so a lot of the characters are super, super young, you know?

Two of them talk about how they were in first grade when Putin came to power. Like, she says this beautifully. She says, well, as long as I've known there was such a thing as a president - because, you know, when you're 3, you don't really know what a president is - you know, it's been Putin. A bunch of the characters are super, super young. I mean, they're constantly referring to "Harry Potter" as a way of understanding Putin's Russia. They watch "Gossip Girl." They hate watch "Emily In Paris," you know? They live in a world that's very connected to our world.

And a lot of them just went straight from journalism school. And many of them decided at a super young age - you know, like at 14, 15, you know, they decided, this is what I want to do. But now, of course, all of them are now in exile. None of them can really go back to Russia, can step foot in Russia. And a lot of them have criminal cases against them. Russia does this thing where it arrests and sentences people in absentia.

And so, for example, there's a character, she appears only on air in Part 1, but she becomes actually one of the leading characters in Part 2. Her name is Lera (ph). She's actually the youngest one. When we start seeing her, she's 22. She's hosting this New Year's special. She says she decided to become a journalist at 15. Her mom wants her to become a banker. But now she's an anchor on TV Rain in exile. They're now operating out of Amsterdam.

She is an extremist terrorist, according to Russia. And that's not - in Russia, that's not just an insult, like the way Trump throws it around. It is a legal status. She's been declared an extremist terrorist. She's also been charged in absentia for spreading fake news about the Russian army because she talked about war crimes in Bucha. And several other TV Rain anchors also have been charged and sentenced for the same thing.

MOSLEY: Our guest today is filmmaker Julia Loktev. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JULIAN LAGE'S "40'S")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest is filmmaker Julia Loktev. Her latest film, "My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air In Moscow," is a 5 1/2-hour documentary structured in chapters, following a close-knit group of independent Russian journalists and activists during 2021 and early 2022 as the Russian government branded reporters foreign agents in the months leading up to and just after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Loktev filmed much of it herself in Moscow, often alone, using an iPhone. Her breakthrough documentary, "Moment Of Impact," is about her father's catastrophic car accident and its aftermath, and it won the directing award for documentary at Sundance. She later directed the fiction feature "Day Night Day Night" and "The Loneliest Planet." She's also a Guggenheim fellow. And the global distributor Mubi has announced that it will release both "Part I" and the forthcoming "Part II" of "My Undesirable Friends."

Julia, the women, the journalists that you follow, they are continuing to live. They're into music. They're into fashion and dinner parties and dark humor, even with this threat hanging over them. What did you learn from them about how you keep fighting in the face of it?

LOKTEV: Absolutely. They keep living, and I think one of the things that's huge is community, and it's something that always played a role there. You know, people live - I always kind of say that Russian kind of - they live in - you know, in hordes and communities. They're not solitary. They live in kind of - they're constantly going to friends' houses and people are gathering, and somebody else will come over. And that is a huge part of what binds people together and keeps them strong and makes them able to do things. And there was a lot of energy in that, and I think community is huge. And there's a lawyer who speaks at a gathering. She says, you know, let joy and laughter also be a part of our resistance. And I think that's important - is, you know, they say, well, you know, Putin would like us to just curl up in a fetal position and cry, but we will continue to laugh and even as we're fighting. And I think, generally, dark humor has a huge, huge, huge role in this film and really a huge role in Russian society.

MOSLEY: I wondered if this is just cultural.

LOKTEV: (Laughter) It is.

MOSLEY: Yeah. I was just going to say, it feels very much cultural.

LOKTEV: I mean...

MOSLEY: Yes.

LOKTEV: They've had a century of dark things, and a lot of how it's been dealt with is dark humor.

MOSLEY: Well, there's that one scene where one of the journalists, she's doing these - when you're deemed a foreign agent, you have to fill out these financial reports, right? And she's filling out financial reports of her expenses, her disclosures to the Russian government. We're seeing her have to calculate things like her Netflix account and her cat food and all of those things. And there's real consequences to her not getting it right, right? And she's making fun of it along the way. There's nothing to do to - but laugh to keep from crying.

LOKTEV: No, absolutely. 'Cause, yeah, that's one thing we didn't mention. If you were a foreign agent, you also had to declare all your expenses to the government. So - because, you know, that pair of underwear that you bought yesterday is now supporting a foreign agent. And so they would have to just detail all their expenses to the government. And of course, I mean, how can you not laugh?

MOSLEY: I want to talk a little bit about joy as a subversion tactic. And you mentioned earlier how in deciding to go to Russia to film this, to document it, what really struck you was the comedy portion of it, how these journalists were using joy in music. This film is entirely in Russian, but I want to play a clip in this documentary, and then we can talk about it on the other side. This particular clip - there is a journalist who is performing on TV Rain a song. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART I - LAST AIR IN MOSCOW")

UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: (Singing in Russian).

MOSLEY: That was a clip from "My Undesirable Friends." And, Julia, I have a visceral reaction listening to it, not even knowing the words to the song. First off, can you tell us who that is and what that song is saying?

LOKTEV: Oh, my God. That song is an incredible protest song. It's a band called Pornofilmy, and it's one of the kind of greatest protest songs of contemporary Russia. And this was - I have to tell you, this was on TV Rain, like, a few months before the war. This was out in the open in Russia. It's unimaginable now because what that song is saying is, this will pass. We live in this dark century, and yesterday's dictator will be a dead old man. And it refers to the original invasion of Ukraine in 2014. It talks about, like, you know, the doors of Lefortovo Prison will be thrown open. It talks about people being arrested. It talks about, like, and one day, you know, all of this will pass. And it refers to all of kind of the crimes of Putin's regime and says, yes, there will be an awakening from this. And this is somebody singing this on TV Rain.

I can't remember if Kudlerov (ph), the singer - I think he has now been charged. I mean, you kind of have a hard time keeping up with who has which crime charge, but yeah, I think he does - definitely has criminal charges against him, also in exile. I'm pretty sure he's been charged with fake news or discreditation of the army. I'd have to look up the exact charge, but it's all part of a continuum. And, I mean, this song just - I get chills when I hear it because it is the hope of so many people, and somehow they still hoped against hope that this would happen.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is filmmaker Julia Loktev. Her documentary film, "My Undesirable Friends: Part I - 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. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIG LAZY'S "THEME FROM HEADTRADER")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, we're talking to filmmaker Julia Loktev, director of "My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 - Last Air In Moscow."

Julia, I want to talk a little bit about your background. So you and your family, you come from Russia. You arrived here to the United States when you were 9. Take me back to that time period. How and why did your parents choose the U.S. to immigrate to?

LOKTEV: Well, we left what was the Soviet Union then not knowing what country we would go to at that point. You know, we left because we got permission to leave and got permission to come to the U.S. as refugees. And then I had a very unusual experience where, you know, I did not grow up in Brooklyn surrounded by other Russian immigrants. But several months after we came to the U.S., my mom got a job at HP in Loveland, Colorado, which is pretty much halfway between Denver and Cheyenne, Wyoming. And so we moved there. And so, you know, the second half of my growing up was really in this small-ish Colorado town.

MOSLEY: I had the privilege of watching your first documentary, "Moment Of Impact." And it's about your father's car accident. You were 19 when it happened. And it is moving. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen the entire time. What made you decide that this devastating thing that happened to your family would be the first story you told as a filmmaker?

LOKTEV: So I had gone to film school thinking I wanted to make fiction. And I always kind of really think of myself in that way and have accidentally, it seems, made two documentaries now. But the first one, you know, when I started making the film, my dad, he was crossing the street between two garage sales and got hit by a car on April Fool's Day and ended up having severe brain damage for many years. And when I started making it, he was already in that state for eight years. And so it wasn't a state that changed a lot.

Like, when I say my dad was hit by a car, people say, did he live or die? And the only answer I can come up with is kind of neither. You know, he became suspended in this state. And it challenged my ideas of what is the worst thing that could happen, you know, because we are really used to these stories that are either a tragic death or a miraculous recovery, and that kind of makes sense. And this was neither. This was a kind of ongoing existence where very little changed from day to day. And I also - you know, it just challenged every single idea of what it meant to be human, to be alive, what one can expect in life, for me, to really look at this. How do you - it's not something most of us expect to happen, you know, and yet it can happen.

MOSLEY: You know, I was really meditating on the name of your first documentary, "Moment Of Impact." And this is no unique thought. You've talked about this before. But it is - it does seem to be a through line through all of your work. I'm thinking about "Day Night Day Night." It hinges on this anticipation of an explosion. And then there's "My Undesirable Friends," and it captures these moments before the country tips into war. Why do you think you keep returning to these pivot points where everything seems to change? What do you think it is that you're trying to understand?

LOKTEV: Oh, my God, I probably have to go to therapy for this. I have no idea.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

LOKTEV: It is something. At some point, I remember some critic pointed this out. And they're like, all of your films seem to hinge on this, you know, pivotal moment that divides the before from the after. And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess that's true. You know, it's not something I have consciously done. But it's absolutely - it's kind of strange, isn't it?

MOSLEY: There's this sequence that you feature in the film "My Undesirable Friends" right after, I think it was, like, around February, end of February of 2022. So Russia invades Ukraine. And there's this sequence at TV Rain those first few days where the journalists that you're following are watching the news hit in ways, because this is the time period when Western companies then start pulling out one after the other. So there are no Apple stores, no more Nike, no more Ikea. And then they realize that they have to leave as well. And you kept those cameras rolling. How did that feel in the moment when you started to see these bigger institutions say, it's time for us to leave as well?

LOKTEV: Oh, it's all happening so fast. You know, my bank cards stopped working. My credit cards stopped working. It was like, day by day, Russia was getting cut off from the world. And we have to - you know, that's something I keep emphasizing is that the Moscow you see in the film and the Moscow of these characters' lives is not that different from New York or Paris. I mean, ideologically, yes. But, you know, they're used to a Zara store on every corner, an H&M.

MOSLEY: Right, they're going to restaurants, their bars.

LOKTEV: They're going to - yeah.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

LOKTEV: They love matcha lattes. They, like, you know, watch Netflix, constantly refer to it. You know, they take it for granted that there's an apple store and an Ikea. And one of them, you know, cracks a joke then, because obviously, all these things are being shut down. Like, along with the press being shut down, the international stores are pulling out. And one of them is like, no. You know, I think she says, she's like, no more Nike or Apple? We don't have a country anymore, you know (laughter)? Like, because these are all things they've started to take for granted.

This is a very interconnected Russia for these characters, you know? They've grown up in a very globalized world. And, of course, now it's very, very different. And it's familiar. I mean, I think that's what's striking is so many films we see about - pretty much all films, to be honest. Like, pretty much every film I've seen about Russia, it looks like a very far away place. Like, it looks very - but, you know, it looks like it has nothing to do with you.

MOSLEY: We see all of the old architecture. We don't - right, exactly.

LOKTEV: Right, or you see the old architecture.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

LOKTEV: Or you go to some small town where, oh, my God, these people are so weird and, you know, the characters all seem so, like, one step away from the Soviet Union. And these are characters you might know. I mean, I know that sounds really cheesy. But so many people have said to me, like, they're just like us, you know?

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

LOKTEV: And it's a bit - it sounds ridiculous, but it is true that they are incredibly familiar to us. And their world and their hopes are incredibly familiar to us, you know? For example, you know, how they feel about queer rights. I mean, they're like how most of my friends feel.

MOSLEY: This film was your way of doing something, and it's a film about Russia, but it also makes the viewer ask, what does it mean to be the opposition under a government that you oppose? What is your role? What can you do? And I want to know - what do you tell Americans when they ask you this question?

LOKTEV: (Laughter) I wish I had some really great advice. I think - and, yeah, it's absolutely a film about living under - you know, trying to do good under a government you oppose, trying to do good when you don't get results, you know, honestly, and still trying to do that. And I think that's really important. You know, we are so used to measuring things in results.

And I'm probably - spoiler alert, but this comes up in the second half. It's one of the most important moments for me in the second half, is I got a message, a video message, from this character, Edik (ph), who we see getting - you know, we're waiting for him outside of a police station in "Part I." He's a TV Rain anchor. He also happens to have gotten arrested in "Navalny," the film. But he's an anchor at TV Rain. And he sends me this really lovely message, and he says, you know, I like the story of Sisyphus, but I don't think of him as a victim. I think he finds meaning in pushing the stone. And I think that's incredibly important. I think that's the lesson that, you know, if there is a lesson, it's - I think it's the things that people say in the film. Let, like, joy and laughter be part of our resistance. You know, finding meaning in pushing the stone and not giving up, even when things seem rather hopeless.

MOSLEY: Julia Loktev, thank you so much for this documentary and for this conversation.

LOKTEV: Thank you.

MOSLEY: Filmmaker Julia Loktev. Her documentary is called "My Undesirable Friends." Coming up, jazz historian Kevin Whitehead reviews a new edition of Miles Davis recordings. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "BYE BYE BLACKBIRD")

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. In 1965, Miles Davis led one of the all-time great jazz groups with four younger players, including saxophonist Wayne Shorter and pianist Herbie Hancock, but they rarely worked that year while Miles dealt with medical issues. But that December, they recorded seven sets over two nights at the Chicago nightclub the Plugged Nickel. The complete recordings went unreleased for decades. Well, now comes a new addition. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead says the music is all over the place in the best way.

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "WHEN I FALL IN LOVE (LIVE AT THE PLUGGED NICKEL)")

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Before they played Chicago's Plugged Nickel with Miles Davis in 1965, drummer Tony Williams famously challenged his fellow sidemen to play anti-music on the gig, the opposite of what a listener or even the other players might expect. They hadn't known they'd be recording live, and they didn't clue in Miles, but they went for it anyway, sometimes. Two versions of the same tune might sound radically different. Tony Williams, who just turned 20, was the main instigator. Jazz drummers typically favor steady tempos, but Williams had other ideas. On "No Blues," pianist Herbie Hancock and bassist Ron Carter follow him all the way down.

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "NO BLUES (LIVE AT THE PLUGGED NICKEL)")

WHITEHEAD: The players' anti-music stance pushed back against Miles Davis' stale and limited live repertoire. The quintet had broken new ground on their current album "E.S.P.," recorded earlier in '65. But on gigs, they played only one tune from it in simplified form. Mostly, they did songs he'd been doing for years, some since the 1950s. Miles usually took the first solo, with the rhythm section generally well behaved. After that, things might advance into more open territory with more floating rhythm. This is from "Agitation," that lone tune from "E.S.P."

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "AGITATION (LIVE AT THE PLUGGED NICKEL)")

WHITEHEAD: Tony Williams is the band's spark plug, but on the 7 1/2 hours of Miles Davis' "Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel 1965," the star soloist is Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone. Miles could play sparsely, leaving lots of space. Shorter, by contrast, might overflow that space, as John Coltrane had with Miles. Shorter might echo Coltrane's drive but had a more variable tone.

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "FOUR (LIVE AT THE PLUGGED NICKEL)")

WHITEHEAD: He goes on like that for five minutes. Then on the very next number, Wayne Shorter is relaxed, lyrical and full bodied - a total turnaround. It's the ballad "When I Fall In Love."

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "WHEN I FALL IN LOVE (LIVE AT THE PLUGGED NICKEL)")

WHITEHEAD: In truth, the quintet's weak link is Miles Davis. The trumpeter had been sidelined for most of the year with hip problems and sounds out of practice. Miles' greatness isn't about sterling technique, but the ingenious ways he works around his limitations. But here, when his lips tire, he may fall back on pure bluster. One static episode prompts belated heckling from Tony Williams. The band didn't always play nice with the boss.

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "NO BLUES (LIVE AT THE PLUGGED NICKEL)")

WHITEHEAD: Miles' chops would soon improve just to keep up. And at the Plugged Nickel, he does have his moments. The trumpeter starts his "Green Dolphin Street" solo with his signature Harmon mute stuck in the bell. When he takes the mute out, you can just hear him do it. The change in sound and attitude is so dramatic, it's like a different soloist steps up. Call it his own anti-music turn.

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET (LIVE AT THE PLUGGED NICKEL)")

WHITEHEAD: During their two-week stand in Chicago, Miles neither called out his players on their antics, nor did he fire their mutinous asses. Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams had thoroughly modernized the leader's sound, and that Quintet had a few excellent years and classic albums still ahead. And at the Plugged Nickel, Miles Davis did show he could hold his own in such fast company on stretched out versions of their set closing "Theme." There, he and Shorter would improvise together as close as Miles had inched toward free jazz. Many, many bands would imitate this quintet over the decades. But precious few ever get as rambunctious as things got at the Plugged Nickel Christmas week, 1965.

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS QUINTET'S "THE THEME (LIVE AT THE PLUGGED NICKEL)")

MOSLEY: Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead is the author of "New Dutch Swing," "Why Jazz?" and "Play The Way You Feel." He reviewed Miles Davis, Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel 1965. If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our conversation with journalist Gabe Sherman, who's covered the Murdochs for nearly two decades and has a new book about the succession fight, or with historian Robert Kagan, who says we're heading into a dictatorship if we're not already in one, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers recommendations on what to watch, read and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org/freshair.

FRESH AIR's executive producers are Danny Miller and Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSETTE EXPLOSION'S "SWING 39")

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