Hot Docs 2025: Mr. Nobody Against Putin Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Hot Docs Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Pavel Talankin is an events coordinator for the Karabash Primary School, a small city in Russia that is well known internationally for its pollution. Besides the coordinating role, he is also the filmmaker for the school’s educational activities. That job saw him document most of his daily life, filming everything from the school choir, classes, and his interactions with students in his office, where everyone is welcome to speak their minds. However, in early 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine. Suddenly, its schools began to receive educational guidelines regarding patriotic values and war propaganda. Now, the students must write letters to the soldiers on the battlefront, read poetry about Russia’s values, and learn about the Kremlin’s motives for starting the conflict. As a result, Talankin contemplates the sudden alienation of his pupils and began to document everything he disagrees with.

In a collective effort between Talankin and the American/Danish director David Borenstein, Mr. Nobody Against Putin is a denounced film that portrays the propaganda system within it. Talankin uses his disgust for the war mechanisms to hijack public opinion and avoid opposing opinions. In this sense, the co-director employs an evocative thriller tone in the film. It is notable in the first scene, where he walks through a mysterious venue at night and takes an object from the ground. The film’s opening suggests a paranoia-esque type of thriller to the documentary. The title contributes to the imagination of a confrontational film. In the first twenty minutes, Talankin’s direction foreshadows a grander operation of his subversive acts – a teacher who tries to protect his students from the propaganda machine.

However, that setup does not translate to the final product. The opening appears to set up a tentative implosion of the system from the inside out. Yet, it develops into something that works more as a lamentation diary from Talankin towards his ideals of education. It becomes evident when he presents an antagonistic representation of the history teacher, a Russian nationalist. It is a traditional narrative feature juxtaposing different personas and personalities on a specific topic. In this case, the Russia-Ukraine war. Talankin is not opposed to the conflict merely for the destruction of Ukraine. He is worried more about Putin’s tyrannical orders and his students of military age. In its exposition of his Russian democracy flag, a symbol for the groups who demand more transparent elections and the stepping down of Putin, it is easy to understand where the film is coming from. The issue at hand is Putin rather than the aggression.

Consequently, the confrontational nature suggested by the film’s title and subsequent opening is merely allegorical. There is no direct conflict between the professor and a government official – it is a moral battle. Talankin’s disagreement is on his ethical issue with the propaganda and how the teachers get overloaded with more functions. It implies his desire not to collaborate with the ongoing authoritarian government. In a sense, the third act flows better than the prior two because of the sincerity of his intentions. The teacher is going to leave Russia and finish the film with his friend. It is worth noting that the preface of their collaboration happens through a message that never gets another mention. It sums up the film accordingly. It is a thread of relevant facts not coherently put into the project.

Thus, Mr. Nobody Against Putin is more a diary of one man’s motivations than a thriller; it misleads the audience in the first half. In the end, plenty of ideas and discussions are not developed to serve a thematic proposition that ends up uneven and undercooked.

Score: 50/100

*still courtesy of Hot Docs*

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Pedro Lima

Brazilian film writer. He is also a producer and executive producer for Zariah Filmes. Member of the International Film Society Critics Association (IFSCA), International Documentary Association (IDA), and Gotham and Media Film Institute.