MUBI, the famend world distributor, streaming platform, and manufacturing firm, has introduced the upcoming launch of the extremely acclaimed documentary My Undesirable Associates: Half I – Final Air in Moscow. The movie shall be accessible completely on MUBI worldwide (excluding Russia and Belarus) beginning April 3, 2026. Followers and cinephiles can sit up for the movie’s premiere alongside its extremely anticipated follow-up, My Undesirable Associates: Half II – Exile, which is slated to premiere later this 12 months on the platform.
Directed and produced by Soviet-born American filmmaker Julia Loktev—recognized for acclaimed works akin to The Loneliest Planet and Day Night time Day Night time—My Undesirable Associates has been celebrated as a cinematic tour de drive. The documentary had its world premiere on the 2025 New York Movie Competition and made its worldwide debut on the Berlin Worldwide Movie Competition, garnering widespread reward from critics and audiences alike.
Set towards the stark winter of 2021 in Moscow, the movie gives an intimate but pressing portrait of impartial journalists navigating a burgeoning totalitarian regime. Loktev traveled to Russia to doc the lives of journalists branded as “overseas brokers” by Vladimir Putin’s authorities. By means of her shut collaboration with co-director Anna Nemzer, a chat present host at TV Rain—the nation’s final remaining impartial media outlet—the movie introduces viewers to a gaggle of resilient girls who refuse to silence their voices regardless of mounting surveillance and authorized threats.
The documentary options vivid portraits of 4 girls: Ksyusha, who continues producing tales whereas her fiancé languishes in jail; Anna, who hosts on a regular basis heroes of resistance whereas defending her daughter from threats; Sonya, who data her podcast from a stark, naked residence, intentionally stripped of distractions; and Alesya, who conceals her relationship from her conventional mom, suspecting her workplace is bugged.
As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine unfolds 4 months later, Loktev captures the journalists’ escalating efforts to counter state propaganda. The movie chronicles their struggles as impartial media shops are shut down, leaving exile as the one viable choice for a lot of.
Structured throughout 5 compelling chapters, My Undesirable Associates seamlessly weaves private intimacy with pressing political realities. The movie has acquired vital accolades, together with the Critics’ Selection Award on the Worldwide Documentary Movie Competition Amsterdam (IDFA), and has been shortlisted for an Oscar. It stands as a significant chronicle of resistance inside a totalitarian society—an more and more related story on the worldwide stage.
Remarkably, Loktev directed, produced, and shot the movie as a one-woman crew, with vital contributions from co-director Anna Nemzer and co-editor Michael Taylor, ACE (recognized for The Farewell). Riva Marker served as a consulting producer, underscoring the movie’s tight, targeted manufacturing.
MUBI’s launch of My Undesirable Associates: Half I – Final Air in Moscow marks a big second for documentary cinema, shedding mild on the braveness of these combating for fact in oppressive circumstances. The movie’s trailer and poster art work have now been unveiled, constructing anticipation for its upcoming debut on April 3, 2026.
- E mail: neill@outloudculture.com
