A man appears in the foreground, then walks away carrying a shovel and a flashlight in the middle of the night, surrounded by Soviet-era buildings. The sequence—a familiar trope in crime or horror films—feels ambiguous in its audiovisual construction. As he moves forward, head down, a woman’s voice calls him, laying out instructions for his departure from the country: before crossing the border, P. must delete the secure messaging app he has been using to communicate with her and be careful with the film material stored on his portable devices. If it weren’t for the previously released synopsis, the opening scene of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Academy Award for Best Documentary this year and banned in Russia, could easily be mistaken for the beginning of a crime story. And not without reason, in a country like Russia, where any criticism of or opposition to Vladimir Putin’s ultraconservative and authoritarian regime is a crime that can be punished with imprisonment—or even death.
Narrated in the first person, the documentary, directed by American filmmaker David Borenstein and Russian schoolteacher Pavel Talankin—who is also its protagonist—offers a case study of the intense militaristic indoctrination imposed on Russian citizens, especially children and young people in schools.
The film’s origin was largely incidental. Pasha—a diminutive of Pavel, the “P.” referred to in the opening phone call—worked as the coordinator and videographer of cultural events at Primary School No. 1 in Karabash, a mining town in the Ural Mountains. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and once it became clear that the “special military operation” would not be over in a matter of days as initially believed, the Russian government introduced a new federal patriotic policy across the entire pre-university education system. It mandated a series of school activities aimed at justifying the annexationist war through the manipulation of imperial Russian history, the distortion of Ukrainian nationalism, the appropriation of the Soviet victory over fascism, and a hostile rhetoric toward the Western world.
Systematically filming these activities was part of Pasha’s duties, as the government also required audiovisual proof of compliance to be uploaded to state databases. At the same time, this responsibility became the perfect cover for documenting propaganda firsthand on Russian soil, as well as the frustrations and hopes of a generation powerless in the face of the return of authoritarianism in the twenty-first century and Putin’s fascist-leaning tendencies in his neo-imperial ambitions and crusade against so-called “Western decadence.” Through the estrangement inherent to the camera—that distanced gaze upon reality—Pasha soon realized that, beyond merely following orders from “above,” he was assembling an archive not only of Putinist propaganda but also of everyday acts of democratic resistance.
The narrative unfolds at a slow, reflective, and sincere pace, without emotional excess. Its focus centers on a bellicose mindset that dates back to the imperial era and was reshaped after the 1917 Revolution. Russia has claimed ownership of the legacy of the Soviet victory in World War II and, by extension, of Stalinist raison d’état, projecting onto Ukraine its own fascistic impulses.
A portrait of Putin presides over one of the filmed classrooms. The history teacher, Pavel Abdulmanov—whose physical features suggest ancestry from one of the peoples Russified during the empire and the Soviet Union—presents his historical role models: Lavrentiy Beria, Viktor Abakumov, and Pavel Sudoplatov, all figures associated with Soviet intelligence and repression. Abdulmanov himself scans each student entering the school for metal objects, as if at an airport. He is later rewarded with a new apartment, a form of material incentive typical of Soviet communism used to secure loyalty and submission.
Fragments of Putin’s speeches are interwoven with the explicit effort to eliminate any dissenting perspective. Some of Pasha’s (former) students, such as Vanya and Masha, speak about their fears and their lack of real prospects for the future. The former is conscripted into the war; the latter loses her brother at the front. Families are torn apart. In one scene, the screen goes completely black while the voice of Artyom’s mother—Pasha’s childhood friend—can be heard weeping and bitterly mourning her son’s death. Death is glorified in advance; war is presented as ultima ratio regum.
Children and teenagers march, recite patriotic poems, train with real weapons, take part in grenade-throwing competitions, write letters to soldiers in Ukraine, receive visits from mercenaries from the Wagner Group, and listen to stories of their epic struggle against “evil.” This helps explain the regime’s insistence on the “education” of younger generations: “Commanders do not win wars; teachers win wars,” Putin declares on television. War is framed as a process of growth into manhood. Pasha’s mother, the school librarian, illustrates the depth of this militaristic mindset: war is the “natural” place for young men.
To the 2013 law against “homosexual propaganda”—enacted “to protect children from information advocating the denial of traditional family values”—was added in 2022 the Movement of the First, a youth initiative designed to organize recreational and educational activities for children, “including the formation of their worldview on the basis of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.” In the postwar period, International Children’s Day (June 1) had already been established to commemorate and support orphaned and homeless children, a date that has been revived with particular force in recent years.
Within this context of omnipresent propaganda, Pasha creates a small “democratic space” in his office where dissenting students can channel their feelings. They are seen at various house parties, sharing fears and aspirations amid laughter, drinks, and cigarettes, strengthening deep bonds of friendship and fostering a sense of community in a hostile environment. From a cinematic perspective, the emphasis on the town’s space is significant: the blackened mountains of pollution and mining exploitation serve as a metaphor for the toxicity of the social atmosphere its inhabitants breathe. The alternation of the seasons further underscores the existential apathy of individuals trapped in the epistemological snares of authoritarianism and militarism as a permanent telos.
The opening words Pasha delivers at the graduation ceremony stand in semantic contrast to the death-driven mandate imposed by the Russian regime: he proposes instead the possibility of life from which they have been deprived. The final scene comes into focus as the film’s circular structure closes and the viewer understands what Pasha was doing with a shovel and a flashlight in the darkness of the vegetation. Noticing a police presence beneath his building, he realizes the time has come to leave.
This “Mr. Nobody,” along with other anonymous figures from metropolitan and provincial Russia, speaks to the strength of individual and collective resistance, however small. Placing strips of tape in the shape of a cross on windows—a symbol of support for Ukrainian refugees, in opposition to the fascist-tinged “Z” of the Russian offensive—or blasting over loudspeakers the anthem of the “star-spangled banner,” sung by Lady Gaga, are everyday acts of dissent that trace movements of escape and return. The documentary stands as one of the most urgent testimonies on contemporary Russia and on the political power of education and memory.