‘I started filming two weeks after the war began,’ Talankin said. The idea of releasing part of the footage as a film did not occur to him at first. At that stage, he only knew that he had no intention of deleting the recordings after submitting them to the Ministry of Education, as required by regulations.

In a February interview with the Russian émigré outlet Novaya Gazeta, Borenstein said that he had originally planned to shoot the film himself, with Talankin appearing only as the central character. Neither Talankin nor Borenstein realised at the outset what risks they were taking.

‘Anti-war protests were still taking place in the streets, the new law on treason had not yet been enacted, and the revised version of the law on foreign agents had not been adopted,’ Borenstein explained the reasoning behind the original plan. After some initial haste, however, they concluded that only Talankin himself could film the material.

Tensions Inside the School

Talankin told Statement that he did not have a single ideologically like-minded colleague. Quite a few students, especially older ones, also criticised him for his openly anti-regime stance.

‘A new wave of repression has now hit Russia. Children are reporting teachers, and teachers, in turn, are reporting children and their parents,’ Talankin said.

This atmosphere was reflected in school campaigns designed to demonstrate loyalty to the war effort. One such campaign, known as ‘A Letter to a Soldier’, encouraged pupils to write messages of support to Russian troops at the front. At the Karabash school, however, one student wrote to a soldier, ‘I won’t wish you anything – I don’t care what happens to you.’ Talankin quietly removed the postcard from the staff room so that the incident would simply fade away.

Honoured Abroad

‘For four years, we have been looking at the starry sky and making the most important wish. There are countries where, instead of shooting stars, bombs fall from the sky and drones fly,’ Pavel Talankin said on stage during the Oscar ceremony.

‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin is a film about how one can lose one’s country,’ added David Borenstein. ‘While working on these scenes, we realised that it can be lost through countless small acts of complicity.’

Talankin and Borenstein’s film had already won the documentary category at the 79th BAFTA Film Awards on 22 February.