Mr. Nobody Against Putin (2025) dir. David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin

An audacious premise holds up against daunting circumstances in this insidious look at pro-Russian propaganda taking over a small village school.

My last post before I began my second year as a Programming Intern at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival was This Is Not a Film (2011), which chronicled Jafar Panahi’s attempts to keep the creative spark alive while under house arrest by the authoritarian Iranian government. So it only makes sense that my first post after SBIFF would be about the same subject, just under a different angle.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin (2025) piqued my interest as soon as I saw the trailer. Pavel “Pasha” Talankin is an event coordinator/videographer at Karabash Primary School #1, located right next to the Ural Mountains in what has been dubbed the most toxic town on the planet. However, the town of Karabash is actually pretty idyllic, with kids bundling into Pasha’s office to discuss their issues and the state of the world with him. But when that fucker Putin instigates the Russo-Ukranian War in 2022, students and teachers find themselves confronted with a mandatory “patriotic” curriculum. So Pasha does what he knows best and chronicles everything.

Making this film was nothing short of a miracle. I kept finding myself wondering how Pasha was able to record this film in the first place. Everything from recording bystanders to protest attendees to interviewing students to showing the Russian pro-democracy flag was awe-inspiring. But every shot carried a sense of danger. For every glimpse of freedom, there are ten more shots of non-freedom. Like when Pasha sees a police car parked outside of his apartment. Or when the new patriotic history teacher Abdulmanov comes in praising some of the worst instruments of Stalin’s regime. Or when Russian military officials visit the school and demonstrate what kinds of weapons they might use if they are conscripted for war. At one point, they hand out grenades, which the students delicately handle. In a way, that’s what the film is like.

But Pasha handles it all as well as he can, even amidst grim conditions In fact, the humor is the most hopeful thing about this otherwise depressing subject matter. It’s clear Pasha is trying to recreate the environment he wanted as a kid from behind the camera lens, especially as students find themselves forced to conceal their own true thoughts so they won’t be labeled a traitor to the motherland. There’s also something very Russian about it too. Pasha remarks at one point that patriotism isn’t blindly following your country into declaring war. It’s about standing up when your country does a super shitty thing. Sometimes, it’s blaring Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem to the entire school. It sounds suicidal.

Then again, it’s Russia.

I found it refreshing that so much of this film is done on the micro-level. Considering the constraints of this film, it’s not hard to see why. For one thing, Pasha undertook screening this film at great risk to his safety, as well as to the safety of his friends and family. It’s not like he had tons of B-roll news footage awaiting him. Plus, filming it at a more intimate level makes the movie more universal. It’s one thing to see your government lie to the general public. It’s another thing to see those lies being perpetrated to your friends and loved ones in a place you once felt safe.

I was thinking about all the myths about America I was taught as a kid, and how it wasn’t until I got older that I realized the closer reality. But then I thought again and criticized my initial reaction. It’s not like the country woke up one day and said that Thanksgiving was a “friendly interaction between the Native Americans and Pilgrims.” It’s been a centuries-long systemic effort to sugarcoat genocide. Which is part of what irked me about this film.

Pasha makes it clear in the film (and in the post-screening Q&A I would attend later) that some of the kids at his school have been taught by their parents not to watch the state-sanctioned news. But there’s a lot of other kids that have, and even though the new propaganda is geared towards boosting national morale towards the war, what about the propaganda before the war? Putin and the Russian state were certainly not shy about that. I felt a bit disappointed he didn’t go into that further, but I guess there’s only so much you can record.

This film is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, and while I’m unsure if it will win, I’m rooting for it. Even if it doesn’t come home with the Golden Man or whatever the fuck its name is, this film deserves praise. It’s not just a film about Russia, but about how teachers and schools can make the difference between blindly following your government or becoming a true citizen of democracy. There’s a guy in the film whose name I won’t mention, but he puts it somewhat perfectly: Teachers can win wars.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

• When Pasha showed up for the Q&A, he came in with frosted tips and a cheetah print shirt. That’s the most Russian version of an American he could have come as.
• Abdulmanov, the new pro-Russian history teacher featured in the film, is so deadpan in his fervor for Russia that it comes off as hilarious. Just listen to what he thinks of the French.
• Pasha’s mother is simply a gem. Masha too.