Pavel Talankin

Talankin grew up in Karabash, an industrial town in Chelyabinsk Oblast.^[8] He attended Karabash Primary School No. 1 as a child and later returned to work there.^[3][13] His mother worked at the same school as a librarian.^[8]

Published accounts describe Talankin as working with children since his student years, including at the Orlyonok camp near Lake Uvildy and later in a children’s home and a library in Karabash.^{[8][4][14][1][3]}

At Karabash Primary School No. 1, Talankin organized extracurricular activities and filmed school events such as assemblies and ceremonies as part of his job as the school videographer.^[4][8] He taught children practical video production skills, including shooting and editing.^[2][15] In public reporting, Talankin’s pre-film community work in Karabash included activities with students connected to media and youth programming, including a 2021 project building a detailed Minecraft model of Karabash with students.^[8][16]

Talankin collaborated with filmmaker David Borenstein on Mr. Nobody Against Putin using footage recorded inside his school over a two-year period following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and he left Russia in June 2024 carrying recorded material on seven hard drives.^[3][4] The Sundance film listing credits Talankin as co-director and cinematographer and identifies the film as a Denmark/Czech Republic production with a 90-minute runtime in Russian.^[3] International festival programs in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary scheduled screenings of the film, listing Talankin as co-director and identifying him as a teacher associated with the school where the film was shot.^[13][17][15] The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2026 Oscars.^[18]

Talankin’s credited filmmaking work centers on first-person documentary narration and observational footage recorded within a Russian primary school setting in which he worked officially as a videographer.^[3][19] Reviews have described the film’s approach as combining on-the-ground school footage with diary-like narration to depict the integration of ideological messaging into everyday school routines.^[19][20]

Coverage of Talankin in Russian-language reporting has emphasized his former role inside Karabash Primary School No. 1 and the risks associated with removing filmed school material from Russia after the start of the full scale invasion in 2022.^[4][8] Reviews in European and North American outlets discussed Talankin’s footage as a rare inside-school record of how war-related messaging and rituals appeared in day-to-day educational life during the period when he was filming.^[19][20]

The documentary is based on footage from a school in the city of Karabash, showing the process of ideological indoctrination of children. The film "Mr. Nobody Against Putin" became a sensation and caused a mixed reaction in Russia.^[21] When presented with the award, Talankin made a call to stop wars, mentioning children.

A Chelyabinsk court banned the documentary from streaming platforms - VK Video, Yandex, and Motion Video - on the grounds that it "propagates extremism and terrorism."^[22] The court cited the use of the White-blue-white flag and associated it with the Freedom of Russia Legion.^[23]

On March 27, 2026 the Russian Ministry of Justice added Talankin to its list of foreign agents.^[24]

• List of Russian Academy Award winners and nominees