Videographer’s school footage became Oscar-nominated film on Russian classroom militarization

Pavel Talankin, a videographer and events coordinator at School No. 1 in Karabash in Russia’s Ural Mountains, recorded classroom activities after the Education Ministry overhauled the curriculum following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. That footage became the documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which is now in the running for an Academy Award.

Talankin had filmed school events for years, turning his office into a student refuge, but said the new curriculum sought to turn students into patriotic soldiers. He recorded grenade-throwing competitions, weekly patriotic lectures in which a teacher called dissenters “parasites,” and an assembly where Wagner mercenaries taught students to identify mines and how to survive below-the-knee amputations.

He was ordered to film the lessons and upload the footage to a government database to show compliance, and said he realized with his camera he had become an “overseer.” Worried about Russian security services, Talankin cautiously sent footage to American documentary filmmaker David Borenstein, and the film premiered in January 2025 at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Award.

The Russian government has acknowledged the patriotic curriculum initiative but has publicly ignored the film; after the Sundance premiere a bootleg copy reached Talankin’s town, the F.S.B.

Key Topics

World, Pavel Talankin, Karabash, Wagner Group, Education Ministry