Mr. Nobody Against Putin Wins Best Documentary Oscar

The documentary "Mr. Nobody Against Putin" won the Academy Award for best documentary feature on March 15 at the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles, shedding light on a Russian schoolteacher's covert efforts to expose state-sponsored indoctrination in his country's education system amid the war in Ukraine.

Directed by David Borenstein and co-directed by Pavel Talankin, the film draws from more than two years of footage that Talankin, a 35-year-old teacher and videographer, captured at an elementary school in Karabash, a small mining town of about 10,000 residents in Russia's Ural Mountains. Talankin had been tasked by Russia's Education Ministry to record pro-war activities at the school, including patriotic events and lessons promoting Kremlin narratives. Instead, he used the material to document how the institution transformed after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, becoming a hub for military drills, propaganda sessions and recruitment efforts.

The footage reveals everyday scenes of change: students participating in grenade-throwing competitions, writing letters to soldiers at the front and attending talks by fighters from the Wagner private military company, who...