A Russian teacher filmed his school’s shift to propaganda after the Ukraine invasion, fled to exile, and helped make an Oscar-nominated film exposing state control.

A Russian schoolteacher and videographer, Pavel Talankin, secretly filmed his school’s transformation into a tool of state propaganda after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Fearing complicity, he used his camera to document forced patriotic education, military drills, and pro-war messaging, later collaborating with an American director to create the Oscar-nominated documentary "Mr. Nobody Against Putin". Fleeing Russia in 2024, Talankin now lives in exile, calling his safety uncertain. The film exposes how routine compliance enables authoritarian control and highlights quiet resistance through moral introspection and documentation.