LINDSEY BAHR

Julia Loktev’s new documentary begins almost like a tense Hollywood spy thriller. The journalists she’s filming on her iPhone scramble to get out of Russia, many without a plan or lodging and with only a carry-on suitcase full of hastily packed things, hoping they’re not held up at the border.

At nearly six hours, “My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile,” which opens in select theatres this weekend, is the second half of Loktev’s portrait of Russian journalists and the culmination of a five-year project. It began with Loktev filming a group of independent journalists in Moscow in the fall of 2021 as Vladimir Putin was starting to declare some reporters “foreign agents.”

Four months later, the situation changed dramatically: Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and many journalists fled the country on only a few hours’ notice. Loktev kept filming, following her subjects as they reported on the war in exile.

“People hear, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, a six-hour film about journalists? That’s really scary.’ But it’s actually not,” Loktev said. “It’s kind of a hangout film. It’s a friendly film.”

In the attention economy, a nearly six-hour documentary about anything might sound like a hard sell. Loktev knows this.

She went through it with the first film, “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow,” which was shortlisted for an Oscar nomination and is currently streaming on MUBI. That documentary — a portrait of journalists working in a society on the verge of shutting down all press freedoms — is nearly 5 1/2 hours long.

Now she is doing it again, and neither time with the help of a traditional theatrical distributor. A publicist even recently told her that she’s hearing that people don’t want to watch it because they’re “kind of tired about hearing about press freedoms and authoritarianism.”

“I’m like, that’s really interesting, because authoritarianism isn’t tired of them,” Loktev said.

But the thing about the “My Undesirable Friends” movies is that somehow, despite the heavy subject matter, the sprawling runtime and the many characters, they don’t feel like homework. You also don’t need to see “Part I” to dip into “Part II.”

The film succeeds primarily because its central subjects, mostly in their 20s and 30s, remain engaging and relatable while operating under extraordinary strain. They are ordinary individuals attempting to do meaningful work during a tragic period. The narrative focuses on perseverance, asking how journalists continue reporting when global interest wanes and how they maintain enough hope to work each day.

Since 2021, Russian authorities have labelled dozens of newsrooms and reporters as foreign agents, a tactic designed to discredit them and eliminate advertising revenue. The state has also outlawed independent outlets and jailed dissidents. Consequently, numerous news organisations relocated abroad during the early weeks of the war, continuing to reach readers inside Russia through virtual private networks.