Dano Nissen

The story behind the story of “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” is just as compelling as the Academy Award-nominated documentary itself. 

The Knockturnal spoke to the film’s director, David Borenstein, about making the film with the BBC under perilous circumstances, the ongoing precautions taken to protect the filmmakers, the brightening limelight around the film and its subject and the current state of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

The film follows Mr. Nobody, Pavel Talankin, a school videographer who secretly documents his school’s government-ordered propaganda campaign. This means young children memorizing state-mandated paeans to the homeland and school assemblies with Wagner Group mercenaries exhorting teenage boys to join the front lines against Ukraine. Talankin surreptitiously transmits the footage to the American director Borenstein. Since Talankin and Borenstein’s counterprogramming to the school propaganda subverts Putin’s war efforts and thus breaks Russian law, the documentary’s filming and production was highly precarious. 

Borenstein details the security measures the filmmakers took throughout the entire process, including now, where fear of reprisal is palpable. Borenstein says Putin and his government can no longer ignore the film, especially since it has gained so much traction, garnering rave reviews and earning an Oscar nomination for Best Feature Documentary. 

There is a scene in the film where the students watch a video message from Putin. The Russian President thanks first and foremost the teachers for their contributions to the war. He extols them above even soldiers. There is a sense in the film that the education system is a key battleground and Talankin is there as a fly on the wall war correspondent. 

Borenstein has seen how the machine to win the hearts and minds of Russians operates after watching hundreds of hours of footage from the school and now wants to show us an inside look.  Borenstein urges audiences to remember the war is still ongoing and invites us to witness how propaganda pervades in one of the most foundational parts of a society – a school.