The documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which follows a young Russian schoolteacher quietly resisting Russia’s war in Ukraine, won the Best Documentary Feature award at the Academy Awards on Sunday.
Speaking on stage with co-director Pavel Talankin, director David Borenstein said the film explores how a country can gradually be lost through everyday acts of silence and complicity. He said the footage revealed how such decline happens when people fail to speak out against injustice, including when governments commit violence or when powerful elites gain control over the media.
The film, made by Borenstein and Talankin, draws on two years of video recorded by Talankin. It documents how Russian authorities promote pro-war messaging in schools while also capturing Talankin’s own experiences of persecution and eventual exile. The Hollywood Reporter described the documentary as a moving and intimate account.
Other nominees for the Best Documentary Feature award included Cutting Through Rocks, The Perfect Neighbor, The Alabama Solution, and Come See Me in the Good Light.
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