Film Forum

When Russia shuts down all independent media, a group of young dissident journalists must flee Moscow so they can keep reporting and not go to prison. In her riveting follow-up to last year’s awards-sweeping MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS — LAST AIR IN MOSCOW, Julia Loktev follows these courageous, sharply funny women (and a few men) as they fan out across a dozen countries, to Istanbul, Tbilisi, Prague, Vienna, Amsterdam, New York, and beyond. Over the course of four years, they continue to report the truth to Russians from exile, covering their country’s war crimes, even as they face death threats and are declared extremists and terrorists—as they find new meanings of family, friendship, love, and home far from the country to which they may never return. (Viewers can follow EXILE without first seeing LAST AIR IN MOSCOW.)

Presented with support from The Ashes and Diamonds Fund for Eastern European Film

2026     355 MIN.     USA     IN RUSSIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Trailer

Reviews

CRITIC’S PICK. “Gripping... Expect to find yourself riveted... Grand in scale but entirely intimate in scope, what she’s achieved here is a landmark work that will go down as one of the boldest documentary achievements of the 21st century.”
– Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire

“A riveting and vital portrait of media courage under fire. It’s as must-see as they get.”
– Nick Schager, Daily Beast

CRITIC’S PICK. “Essential. Riveting.”
– Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times

“Monumental... It’s great cinema.”
– Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture

“The follow-up to 2024’s LAST AIR IN MOSCOW proves every bit as compelling, if more intimate... EXILE deepens the viewer’s connection to Loktev’s journalists while introducing engaging new subjects... Funny, resilient, and vibrant, Loktev’s subjects have lost their home but not their defiant spirit.”
– Tim Grierson, Screen

“RIVETING. A globetrotting journey that proves harrowing in unexpected ways over an engrossing five chapters... Loktev and co-editor Michael Taylor have crafted a conversational epic that imbues each twist and turn with enormous stakes... Speaking truth to power with the online tools at their disposal, this murderer’s row consists of lively, awkward, driven, beautiful, lovestruck, and above-all complicated people, all caught in impossible personal and professional deadlocks and weighed down by immigrant uncertainty.”
– Siddhant Adlakha, Variety

“STAGGERING. GRIPPING. [A] massive monument to journalism, competing in length and ambition with legendary feats of nonfiction like SHOAH and the UP series... a celebration of truth in an endless fight against deception.”
– Jacob Oller, AV Club

“An essential chronicle of reporters under fire... Loktev, who shot the entire 12-hour doc herself, turns each reporter into the character of a real-life series unfolding before our eyes as the years go by and the war inevitably drags on... [she] creates an intimacy that goes beyond the international crises and political upheavals to focus on the human costs of an unending conflict.”
– Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

“CHILLING. The film’s final chapter has the charge of an espionage thriller.”
– Marshall Shaffer, Slant

“BRILLIANT. Keeping us on the edge of our seats for 6 hours. A moving tribute to the necessity of resistance.”
– Boris Bastide, Le Monde