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Law on Film
Law on Film explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films, even to those that are not obviously about the legal world. Film, meanwhile, tells us a lot about the law, especially how it is perceived and portrayed. The podcast is created and hosted by Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer, legal scholar, and film buff. Each episode, Jonathan and a guest expert will examine a film that is noteworthy from a legal perspective. What does the film get right about the law and what does it get wrong? Why is law important to understanding the film? And what does the film teach about law's relationship to the larger society and culture that surrounds it. Whether you're interested in law, film, or an entertaining discussion, there will be something here for you.
Law on Film
My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow (2024) (Russian) (Guests: Rachel Denber & Anna Nemzer) (episode 58)
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My Undesirable Friends: Part I—Last Air in Moscow (2024) is Russian-language American documentary film written and directed by Julia Loktev (with co-director Anna Nemzer). The film describes the effort to maintain press freedoms in Putin’s Russia in the period leading up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The documentary provides an intimate portrait of independent Russian journalists—mainly young women—who risk everything to pursue truth and accountability amidst escalating repression under the Putin regime. Filmed in late 2021 and early 2022, the documentary captures how the legal machinery of censorship, surveillance, and state-harassment converged to crush internal dissent and incapacitate civil society. It not only provides a profoundly disturbing account of what has occurred in Russia but also serves as a broader warning about the fragility of press freedoms and in a time of rising authoritarianism worldwide.
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:45 How the film came about
5:25 A primer on Russian censorship and repression
15:15 “Foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations”
23:32 Social marginalization through the creation of an enemies list
28:46 State persecution of TV Rain and other independent media
32:45 The manipulation of language
36:30 Identifying the pivotal moment
43:36 How the film captures the elimination of press freedoms
48:26 Courts and lawyers
53:27 The Kremlin’s public mobilization to support the war in Ukraine
58:53 Independent journalism in exile
1:02:17 Parallels to the United States under Trump
Further reading:
Chang, Justin, “‘My Undesirable Friends: Part I’ Is a Staggering Portrait of Russian Journalists in Dissent,” New Yorker (Aug. 14, 2025)
Edel, Anastasia, “Putin vs. the Press,” Foreign Policy (Oct. 3, 2025)
Human Rights Watch, Russia’s Legislative Minefield: Tripwires for Civil Society Since 2020 (2024)
Human Rights Watch, Disrupted, Throttled, and Blocked State Censorship, Control, and Increasing Isolation of Internet Users in Russia (2025)
Krupskiy, Maxim, “The Impact of Russia’s ‘Foreign Agents’ Legislation on Civil Society,” Fletcher Russia & Eurasia Program (2023)
Troinovski, Anton & Safronova, Valeriya, “Russia Takes Censorship to New Extremes, Stifling War Coverage,” New York Times (May 18, 2022)
Yablokov, Ilya & Gatov, Vasily, “Broadcasting through the (New) Iron Curtain: Practices, Challenges, and Legacies of Russia's Independent Media in Exile,” Journalism Studies (Feb. 11, 2025)
Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.
For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html
You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com
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