Mr Nobody Against Putin

Pasha Talankin was the videographer and events coordinator at a primary school in Russia. When Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine turned the school system into a propaganda machine designed to create eager, loyal, unthinking soldiers for Russia, Pasha used the excuse of filming patriotic displays as proof of their being completed in order to gather the footage necessary for this documentary. He safely escaped Russian in 2024, and now his documentary has a 100% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes and has been nominated for the Best Feature Documentary Oscar.

“[A] touching, intimate chronicle.” -Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter
“His principled resistance by filming, joking and refusing to teach lies makes for a riveting, courageous portrait of dissent in a place where truth can land you in jail — or a cemetery.” -Peter Howell, Toronto Star
“Talankin is the hero of Mr. Nobody, an effective look of one man’s resistance against President Vladimir V. Putin’s patriotic curriculum policy.” -Natalia Winkerman, The New York Times
“The guiding intelligence and pervading mournfulness is all Pasha’s as he watches the light in his students’ eyes slowly dim to darkness.” -Ty Burr, Ty Burr’s Watch List
“An endearing, infuriating, and despairing non-fiction portrait of a country’s final descent into oppressive authoritarianism, all of it shot covertly by one brave teacher, it’s a striking work of rebel cinema.” -Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
“The result, featuring a copious voice-over by Talankin, is an exemplary work of cinematic modernism, a reflexive film that turns its genesis into its subject and its moral essence.” -Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“[T]he film feels vital—its observations of a nation’s shifting attitude towards war and hate is crushing and familiar.” -Jacob Oller, AV Club
“Through the eyes of its delightfully brave, yet utterly relatable subject (also the de facto cinematographer), this terrifying, revelatory and poignant exposé offers an unseen human angle on an ongoing conflict.” -Carlos Aguilar, Variety
“One of its more quietly revelatory qualities is how it captures the way authoritarianism accelerates during wartime.” -Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
“The film starkly reveals the toll propaganda takes on everyday individuals and communities.” -Lauren Wissot, Slant Magazine
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin is unique in dealing with serious issues about war and dehumanization with a light, even humorous, and certainly personality-filled, touch — in the serious-as-a-heart-attack war documentary landscape, it is a unicorn.” -Christian Blauvelt, IndieWire

Mr Nobody Against Putin opens at The Clyde on Friday, February 20, and plays Friday, Saturday, and Monday at 7:30, plus Sunday at 2:00.