Editor's note: this story was translated from the original VOA Russian article.
Pavel Talankin, the Russian documentary filmmaker and the creator of the Oscar-winning film “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin” told VOA’s Russian Service that parents and teachers have privately thanked him for exposing how the Kremlin brings propaganda into classrooms.
The film, which won the 2026 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, shows a cameraman working at school in Karabash, a small Russian town, tasked with capturing school life. In the process, Talankin manages to document how Russia is using schools and teachers to spread its patriotic propaganda following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Talankin said when he started working with David Borenstein, the American filmmaker and co-director of “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin,” he did not expect the scale of the response to it.
“I suspected that the material wouldn't leave people indifferent. I guessed there would be differing viewpoints on it. And that’s exactly what happened. But the Oscar - no, of course; I never imagined that. And to be honest, when I was filming these lessons, for some reason I even forgot that such an award existed.”
He decided to start filming because he realized the uniqueness of the material – the footage from inside the school. Before this, according to Talankin, there had been many interviews with teachers who refused to be part of the propaganda and quit their jobs.
His project was different: “Here, the camera captures the very things they were talking about: ‘Conversations about What Matters,’ the grenade - throwing drills, the assembling and disassembling of Kalashnikov rifles, and so on,” he said. “So, my initial goal was to preserve as much of it as possible, to film as much as I could and save it all. Because documenting this is important.”
Following the release of the documentary, Russian authorities pretended to know nothing about it.
But Talankin says the FSB paid a visit to the school.
“After the premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, they gathered the principals of all educational institutions and said, ‘Remember this yourselves and pass it on to your colleagues: this person never existed and doesn't exist now. The film never existed and doesn't exist now,’” he said.
And right up until the Oscars, the federal media pretended the film didn't exist,” Talankin said.
His colleagues and parents of schoolchildren still found a way to reach him indirectly.
"We knew that the 'Conversations about What Matters' sessions had started... But we had absolutely no idea what the actual content of those lessons was. Thank you so much for shedding light on this," one parent told him, according to Talankin.
Talankin said another parent disclosed that he planned to use the film to talk to his children about propaganda in schools.
“I couldn't think of a better approach than simply putting on your film for them to watch,” the parent told him.
His former colleagues also found a way to reach out and congratulate him indirectly.
As part of ongoing persecution of opponents, the Russian government declares as a “foreign agent” any person that they believe to be receiving support from a foreign person or organization.
In Talankin’s case, he was issued two administrative citations: one is for failing to submit a report to the Ministry of Justice regarding the activities of a so-called "foreign agent." The second is for cooperating with “an undesirable organization.”
Talankin says he has no interest in following up with the Russian government about the citations.
“To be honest, I don’t understand exactly which undesirable organization they are talking about, because I haven’t read the official order. As for the reports - I haven’t filed them, and I don’t intend to. Nothing will change. I have never accepted this "foreign agent" status,” says Talankin.
Following the Oscars, Talankin started receiving multiple offers to participate in or collaborate on various projects.
“We travel with the films, screening them and holding Q&A sessions and interviews,” he said.