‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ wins best documentary feature Oscar for teacher who opposed Ukraine war

Anti-Putin Documentary Claims Oscar for Best Documentary Feature

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” a documentary challenging Russian propaganda and youth indoctrination following the Ukraine invasion, was awarded the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday night in Los Angeles.

Pavel Talankin, the film’s protagonist and co-director, delivered a powerful message from the stage, speaking in Russian through a translator: “In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now.”

The documentary offers rare insight into Russia’s educational system, where Talankin worked as a teacher and activities director in a small-town school. He secretly recorded his students’ lessons, chants, and songs promoting the war in Ukraine, then smuggled the hard drives out of Russia to collaborate with American director David Borenstein, who is based in Copenhagen.

Both filmmakers used their acceptance speeches to deliver pointed political statements that drew increasingly enthusiastic applause from the Hollywood audience.

“‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ is about how you lose your country,” Borenstein explained. “You lose it through countless small little acts of complicity.” The audience’s cheers intensified as he continued, noting that nations fall when “we don’t say anything” as governments kill people in the streets and oligarchs consolidate control over media.

“We all face a moral choice, but luckily even a nobody is more powerful than you think,” Borenstein concluded.

When asked about the award, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment, claiming he had not seen the documentary—a response that underscores the Russian government’s sensitivity to criticism, particularly regarding its military actions in Ukraine.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has been a prominent theme in Oscar documentary categories since the war began in 2022. Last year, The Associated Press’ “20 Days in Mariupol” won best documentary feature, while this year’s documentary short nominees included “Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud,” which chronicles the story of an American journalist killed while reporting in Ukraine.

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” distributed by Apple TV+, made its debut at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Critics have noted the film’s occasionally light, almost mischievous tone, with some comparing Talankin’s approach to that of documentarian Michael Moore. The Oscar represents the first win for both Borenstein and Talankin.

The film had built momentum during awards season, having previously claimed the British Academy Film Award. However, its Oscar victory still surprised many industry observers who had favored Netflix’s “The Perfect Neighbor”—director Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary constructed almost entirely from police body camera footage—to win the category.

Other contenders in the documentary feature category included “The Alabama Solution,” “Cutting Through Rocks,” and “Come See Me in the Good Light.”

In the documentary short category, the Oscar went to “All the Empty Rooms,” which documents broadcast journalist Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp’s efforts to memorialize the bedrooms of children killed in mass shootings across America.

In a poignant moment, the winners—director Joshua Seftel and producer Conall Jones—yielded their acceptance time to Gloria Cazares, mother of Jacklyn Cazares, one of the young victims memorialized in the film.

“My daughter Jackie was 9 years old when she was killed in Uvalde. Since that day, her bedroom has been frozen in time,” Cazares told the audience. “We believe that if the world could see their empty bedrooms, we’d see a different America.”

The documentary wins underscored the Academy’s continued recognition of films addressing pressing social and political issues, particularly those giving voice to perspectives often silenced or suppressed in their countries of origin.