DIRECTOR: David Borenstein & Pavel Talankin
STARRING: Documentary
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 30 minutes
LANGUAGE: Russian, English
PLOT: When Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, rural primary schools are repurposed into breeding grounds for recruitment and indoctrination. Caught in the moral dilemma of serving a system built on propaganda and violence, one courageous teacher secretly documents the disturbing reality unfolding inside his own classroom.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Karabash, Russia
To check out all previous submissions for Denmark, click HERE.
STARRING: Documentary
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 30 minutes
LANGUAGE: Russian, English
PLOT: When Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, rural primary schools are repurposed into breeding grounds for recruitment and indoctrination. Caught in the moral dilemma of serving a system built on propaganda and violence, one courageous teacher secretly documents the disturbing reality unfolding inside his own classroom.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Karabash, Russia
To check out all previous submissions for Denmark, click HERE.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“Maybe one day you can be a dead soldier too."
Mr. Nobody Against Putin is a film that begins in the seeming banality of a rural Russian classroom but quickly reveals itself as something far darker. Co-directed by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin, it follows Talankin, a quiet schoolteacher who turns his own workplace into the site of a clandestine investigation. With a hidden camera, he documents how primary schools in the Russian hinterlands are transformed into stages for propaganda, preparing children not for life but for death. The bitter irony is revealed in the way children are conditioned to see loss on the battlefield as an aspiration rather than a tragedy.
The film is disturbing precisely because it shows how the machinery of war works not only on the battlefield but also in the minds of the young. Through Talankin’s footage, we see children rehearsing patriotic anthems, teachers mouthing the same slogans they’ve been handed, and administrators turning classrooms into recruitment centers. The direction keeps the pace taut yet unembellished. There is no need to add drama when the reality is already suffocating. The effect is cumulative, a steady unveiling of how Putin’s rule consumes lives without pause, caring nothing for the humanity behind the statistics.
The film is grounded in small details that grow unbearable in context. The walls of the school are cracked, the children’s drawings are filled with tanks and flags, and the adults wear expressions that flicker between resignation and fear. Talankin’s bravery lies not in grand gestures but in the persistence of filming, capturing moments others might dismiss as ordinary. Borenstein ensures those fragments are stitched into a narrative that speaks volumes: propaganda here is not loud or bombastic, it is casual, repetitive, and insidious.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin is both an act of witness and a moral indictment. It insists that the violence of war is not confined to the front but reaches into the smallest corners of civilian life. Throughout the film, the message becomes unmistakable: under Putin’s rule, human lives are treated as expendable, reduced to little more than fuel for the state’s ambitions. By daring to expose this reality, Talankin transforms from “nobody” into a necessary voice, reminding us that even the quietest acts of resistance can reveal the cost of unchecked power.
(This review contains spoilers.)
“Maybe one day you can be a dead soldier too."
Mr. Nobody Against Putin is a film that begins in the seeming banality of a rural Russian classroom but quickly reveals itself as something far darker. Co-directed by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin, it follows Talankin, a quiet schoolteacher who turns his own workplace into the site of a clandestine investigation. With a hidden camera, he documents how primary schools in the Russian hinterlands are transformed into stages for propaganda, preparing children not for life but for death. The bitter irony is revealed in the way children are conditioned to see loss on the battlefield as an aspiration rather than a tragedy.
The film is disturbing precisely because it shows how the machinery of war works not only on the battlefield but also in the minds of the young. Through Talankin’s footage, we see children rehearsing patriotic anthems, teachers mouthing the same slogans they’ve been handed, and administrators turning classrooms into recruitment centers. The direction keeps the pace taut yet unembellished. There is no need to add drama when the reality is already suffocating. The effect is cumulative, a steady unveiling of how Putin’s rule consumes lives without pause, caring nothing for the humanity behind the statistics.
The film is grounded in small details that grow unbearable in context. The walls of the school are cracked, the children’s drawings are filled with tanks and flags, and the adults wear expressions that flicker between resignation and fear. Talankin’s bravery lies not in grand gestures but in the persistence of filming, capturing moments others might dismiss as ordinary. Borenstein ensures those fragments are stitched into a narrative that speaks volumes: propaganda here is not loud or bombastic, it is casual, repetitive, and insidious.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin is both an act of witness and a moral indictment. It insists that the violence of war is not confined to the front but reaches into the smallest corners of civilian life. Throughout the film, the message becomes unmistakable: under Putin’s rule, human lives are treated as expendable, reduced to little more than fuel for the state’s ambitions. By daring to expose this reality, Talankin transforms from “nobody” into a necessary voice, reminding us that even the quietest acts of resistance can reveal the cost of unchecked power.
