Mr. Nobody Against Putin : Oscar for best documentary, 2026
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award at Sundance Film Festival 2025
Flêche de cristal, Festival des Arcs, 2025
Biography
Pavel Talankin, 33, from the city of Karabash in the Chelyabinsk region, worked as a teacher-organizer at a local school. His duties included videotaping all ceremonial school events: assemblies, open lessons, amateur concerts, graduations and competitions. With the start of the war, school education was subordinated to militaristic propaganda, and the teacher's camera involuntarily recorded these changes.In June 2024, Talankin left Russia, taking seven hard drives with the footage, and, together with American documentary filmmaker David Borenstein, edited it into a film called Mr. Nobody Against Putin. On January 25, it premiered at the Sundance Independent Film Festival.
