How does authoritarianism prevail? That is the central question in the Academy Award-winning documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin. The film follows school teacher Pavel “Pasha” Talankin as he secretly recorded the Russian government’s systemic attempts to “educate” students about the Russian-Ukraine war and force a twisted sense of patriotism among the youth.
In the film’s acceptance speech at the 2026 Academy Awards, co-director David Borenstein said that the film is “about how you lose your country.”
“You lose it through countless small little acts of complicity,” he continued. “When we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities; when we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we could produce it and consume it. We all face a moral choice, but luckily, even a nobody is more powerful than you think.”
There will be a one-day-only screening this Saturday, July 25, at Sine Pop hosted by the Filipino Documentary Society, the non-profit organization led by filmmakers Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, Monster Jimenez, Jewel Maranan, and Baby Ruth Villarama.
To register, fill out this Sine Pop registration form.
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- Mr. Nobody Against Putin
