A film documenting Russian children’s indoctrination into state ideology following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine won the best documentary award at the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday.
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” is a collection of footage secretly kept by co-director and former school videographer Pavel Talankin, who collaborated with Denmark-based American filmmaker David Borenstein.
Their film provides a rare glimpse at how Russian schools have become tools of state propaganda, with the rise of militarized youth programs and the pressure on teachers to promote the Kremlin’s ideology.
Talankin, who was a school event coordinator in a small town in the Chelyabinsk region, left Russia in 2024 before releasing the documentary and is now based in the Czech Republic.
“Thank you, Pavel, for showing me that no matter how dark things get… we always face a moral choice. We need more Mr. Nobodies,” Borenstein said while accepting the BAFTA award.
Talankin told The Moscow Times last year that the idea to make a documentary arose after Russia’s Education Ministry began issuing directives on songs, poems, and patriotic rituals that he was required to film for official publication. Borenstein said his role was to center Talankin’s footage around universal issues of free speech and indoctrination.
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” which premiered at Sundance and Göteborg last year, has been nominated for the 2026 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
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