As Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, primary schools across Russia’s hinterlands are transformed into recruitment stages for the war. Facing the ethical dilemma of working in a system defined by propaganda and violence, a brave teacher goes undercover to film what’s really happening in his own school. In his hometown in the Ural Mountains, fun-loving Pasha works as a nonconformist teacher at the same primary school he attended as a child. However, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine changed everything. Suddenly the school and community he loved transformed from a place of education and self-expression to one of militarization and state ideology. Soon, his own students and their family members are recruited to fight, and Pasha must ask himself what one person can do. Filmed secretly over two years, MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN is an unforgettable portrait of life in Russia today and the impossible choices citizens face when the country they love is in the hands of a ruler who demands it become something they cannot accept. Nominated for Best Documentary, 2026 Academy Awards.
“MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN is unique in dealing with serious issues about war and dehumanization with a light, even humorous, and certainly personality-filled, touch — in the serious-as-a-heart-attack war documentary landscape, it is a unicorn.” —Christian Blauvet, IndieWire “Through the eyes of its delightfully brave, yet utterly relatable subject (also the de facto cinematographer), this terrifying, revelatory and poignant exposé offers an unseen human angle on an ongoing conflict that continues to be widely addressed in documentary cinema.” —Carlos Aguilar, Variety “Over months, through the eyes of one brave, increasingly heartbroken teacher, we see how fear corrodes a small town, how a regime conscripts its people into becoming ideological tools, how the information operates at the local level — in short, how to brainwash a generation…. Talankin has produced a must-watch, indelible document of ideological warfare that echoes far beyond Russia. How’s that for a nobody?” —Adrian Horton, Guardian
