Slideshow
MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART I — LAST AIR IN MOSCOW
Q&A with Filmmaker Julia Loktev, Co-Director/Subject Anna Nemzer, & Subject Ksenia Mironova, Co-Presented by n+1
FIRST WEEK OF WAR: Chapters 4-5
Sunday, August 17
5:20
Moderated by Mark Krotov of n+1
NOTE: This Q&A follows the second section of the film (FIRST WEEK OF WAR: Chapters 4-5)
n+1 is a Brooklyn-based magazine of literature, culture, and politics.
Julia Loktev was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrated to the U.S. at age 9. She has made both fiction and documentary. THE LONELIEST PLANET starring Gael Garcia Bernal, screened at the New York Film Festival, received the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Film Festival, nominations for Best Director at Independent Spirit Awards, and Best Feature at Gotham Awards, and was chosen by IndieWire as one of the “100 Best Films of Last Decade.” DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT premiered at Cannes in Directors' Fortnight, received two Gotham Awards nominations, and earned the Someone to Watch Award at Independent Spirit Awards. Her documentary MOMENT OF IMPACT won the Sundance Film Festival Documentary Directing Award and the Grand Prize at Cinéma du Reél, screened in New Directors/New Films at MoMA, and was an Independent Spirit Awards Truer Than Fiction nominee. Julia is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Emerging Icons Award from the George Eastman Museum.
Anna Nemzer (“Anya” in the film) is a documentary filmmaker and a senior host at TV Rain, hosting a political talk show, Politics: Direct Line, and a new show called Who’s Got the Power? focusing on activists trying to create a better society even as Russia becomes more and more oppressive. When Anya was 11, her mom and stepdad, both academics, emigrated, eventually settling in the U.S. Anya made a decision to stay in Russia, living with her grandparents. When we meet Anya, she still lives in the apartment she grew up in, sharing it with her own family now, including her 10-year old daughter Lilka, and a pet chinchilla. A regular cast of friends are always hanging out in the kitchen, a tight community of journalists and activists.
When we meet her, Ksenia Mironova (“Ksyusha” in the film) is a 23-year-old reporter at TV Rain and at the center of a group of young journalists. She works for several shows, including a feminist show called Women on Top. Her fiancé Ivan Safronov has been jailed on charges of “treason.” He’s been awaiting trial over a year, and the government still has provided no information about the charges. Other journalists constantly mention Ivan Safronov, worrying it could happen to them, which is exactly the point. He will eventually be sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Mark Krotov is the coeditor and publisher of n+1. He is the coeditor of The Intellectual Situation (n+1 Books).
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