Mr. Nobody Against Putin

Name: Mr. Nobody Against Putin
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2025
Duration: 90 min
Rating: 5.0

David Borenstein, Pavel Talankin20251h 30mDocumentary

Why we chose it

This winner of the Oscar for the best documentary of 2025 shows that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t only fought at the front. Putin’s propaganda marched into the classroom in the Urals where Pavel Talankin taught, and he left Russia with hard drives in his luggage holding two years of footage.

Synopsis

Karabash, a smelting town of ten thousand people in the Urals, has a school where Pavel Talankin works as events coordinator and school chronicler, filming the assemblies and the end-of-year ceremonies. From February 2022, the ministry wants the new patriotic lessons recorded as well, and for two and a half years he dutifully does as he’s told, filming meeting after meeting, assembly after assembly. Now he holds footage that no one was ever supposed to see.