my undesirable friends
Julia’s most recent film is screening at Film Forum through September 4, 2025. Click here for more information. Use the code NEWSCHOOL for discounted $13 tickets.
Julia Loktev was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrated to the U.S. at age 9. She has made both fiction and documentary films. Her film The Loneliest Planet, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, screened at the New York Film Festival, received the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Film Festival, a nomination for Best Director at the Independent Spirit Awards, Best Feature at the Gotham Awards, and was chosen by IndieWire as one of the “100 Best Films of the 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 the 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.