Right after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Karabash Elementary, like schools across Russia, was ordered to indoctrinate young minds with a so-called “patriotic curriculum.” Pasha Talankin, the school’s videographer, was assigned to shoot it all, to prove to Russia’s government that the school was toeing the line.
But much as he loved his students, Talankin hated the war, and felt trapped. “I love my job, but I don’t want to be a pawn of the regime,” he said.
Talankin also hated the way his colleagues were forced to parrot the state’s propaganda, such as referring to Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine as “de-Nazification.” So, he decided he would record everything – not just for the government, but to show the world.
His work became the basis of the documentary, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin.” Talankin and the documentary’s American co-director, David Borenstein, spoke to “Sunday Morning” in our London office, ahead of this weekend’s Academy Awards, where their film is nominated for an Oscar.
“When the teacher had to say Ukraine had taken the path of neo-Nazism and neo-fascism, and we must ‘liberate’ it, at that moment I understood that I had no moral right to delete this material,” Talankin said, “because it is part of the evidence of what’s happening in Russian schools today.”
Borenstein said, “I don’t think Pasha even knew, none of us knew, that this film would ever come to anything when we were making it.”
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The two met online, and agreed to make a film. So for two years, Talankin kept shooting, while Borenstein directed remotely from Europe. He recorded everything: pro-war student assemblies; Putin’s paramilitary Wagner Group showing up to give weapons training; and the day some of his students were drafted to fight in Ukraine.
“When Pasha picked up the camera, it was because he felt he was trapped in this Kafkaesque system,” Borenstein said. “He says it in the film: ‘Being a propagandist at this school is like walking a tightrope.'”
The stakes were huge. Talankin could have faced life in prison if caught, especially as he kept drawing attention to himself with small acts of rebellion, like playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” instead of Russia’s anthem on the school’s P.A. system.
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Asked if he ever thought Russian authorities were onto him, Talankin replied, “Sometimes I thought so. In Russia you never know. No one will call you; no one will knock on your door. They just watch, and then suddenly break the door down, throw you on the floor, and the floor is the last thing you see in your apartment. That’s it; you don’t exist anymore.”
In the West, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” is a triumph. Most recently it won best documentary at the BAFTAs (the British Oscar). But in Russia, the Kremlin claims it’s just been too busy to watch.
Talankin’s mother, however, a crusty librarian who appears in the film, has managed to see it. “Well, we don’t talk about it directly,” Talankin said when asked about her reaction. “But she did give an interview to the New York Times and said she liked the film and that she’s proud.”
Eventually, though, the whole charade became too risky. Talankin booked a fake holiday to Turkey, and escaped. Now in exile, he is a very public critic of a sometimes vengeful Russian state. Asked how safe he feels, he replied, “Probably 80 percent safe.”
Talankin mourns for the kids he cares about so deeply, and whose future, he fears, has been poisoned by Putin’s nationalist lies. Of the film he says, “This is a very important document, because it shows what Russian society will be like in a few years. Putin may no longer exist, but society will be evil, because propaganda entered schools and was taught to children.”
This film focuses on the children, but it reveals a lot about the cameraman, too. Borenstein said, “It’s also, to me, a story about resistance. Everybody faces a moral choice wherever you are, and this is a story also about what you do when there is a government around you tearing down everything that you have built up.”
When the time came, Pasha Talankin made his moral choice, to resist. He is “Mr. Nobody” no more.
To watch a trailer for “Mr. Nobody Against Putin.” Click on the video player below:
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Story produced by Leigh Kiniry. Editor: Brian Robbins.
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