Pavel Talankin wins Oscar for 'Mr Nobody Against Putin' doc
SkimNews Take
Talankin's value lay in his ordinariness — a low-level school employee goes unscrutinized in ways a professional journalist never could, suggesting state propaganda's blind spot is the very compliance of its own minor functionaries.
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- Pavel Talankin, a former events coordinator and videographer at a primary school in Karabash in the Ural Mountains, won the Oscar for best documentary for 'Mr Nobody Against Putin' at Sunday's Academy Awards, days after also taking the BAFTA for the film.
- The documentary, co-directed with Copenhagen-based American director David Borenstein, captures how Talankin's school was forced to introduce flag-raising ceremonies, militarization, and lessons about the 'denazification' of Ukraine into its curriculum after the 2022 invasion.
- Talankin secretly sent his footage to Borenstein through encrypted servers, documenting Wagner mercenary soldiers teaching children to handle guns and spot mines, and recording the audio of a mother sobbing at her son's battlefield graveside when filming the funeral was too dangerous.
- Talankin fled Russia in summer 2024 after spotting a police car outside his apartment, following small acts of resistance including changing pro-war Z symbols into X's on school windows and taking down the Russian flag while playing Lady Gaga singing the US National Anthem.
- Talankin says nearly 200,000 Russian teachers left their jobs rather than participate in the propaganda system he documented; he hopes the film will show Russians 'who think similarly to me that they are not alone.'
- On the eve of the Oscars, Talankin learned 19-year-old former student Nikita had been killed in Ukraine, telling the BBC: 'I know him. He is a kind guy and he would never have gone without the propaganda.'
Why it matters: The Oscar gives Talankin's footage of Kremlin school indoctrination its largest global platform yet — at the cost of permanent exile. He left his mother for an undisclosed European location and learned a 19-year-old former student had been killed in Ukraine the day before the ceremony. Per Talankin, nearly 200,000 Russian teachers quit the system rather than participate.
