Mr Nobody Against Putin

Mr Nobody Against Putin  FL, 2025, 4 ¼ stars

Bad Education

Mr Nobody exposes Putin’s indoctrination

Exclusive to MeierMovies, February 4, 2026

“I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,” Bob Dylan sang in “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” But prior to the hard rain comes indoctrination, the kind that the Oscar-nominated documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin exposes.

The aforementioned “Mr Nobody” is Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, an event coordinator at a school in Karabash, in rural, central Russia. The town is dubbed the most toxic in the world because of its copper mining, but the film’s real toxicity is courtesy of Vladimir Putin, who, following his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, launched a campaign of patriotic brainwashing in Talankin’s school and thousands of similar ones across Russia.

Talankin documented the events over a two-year period and, thanks to his status as the school’s videographer, was rarely questioned about his intent. He then fled the country with the footage, which was compiled by director David Borenstein. But, creatively, the film belongs to Talankin, who not only co-directed but narrates in an almost Roger & Me style, even managing to interject some humor into the tragedy. He is the Russian Michael Moore.

The doc premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize. Though, surprisingly, it was not shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar, the movie got the last laugh when it received a nod for best documentary. If you’re lucky enough to see it in its current limited theatrical release, or streaming on Kino Film Collection, your reaction will likely be the same as mine: I can’t believe he filmed that.

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For more information on the movie, visit IMDB and Wikipedia.