The film "Mr. Nobody vs. Putin" won a BAFTA award for best documentary
Kyiv • UNN
The film "Mr. Nobody vs. Putin" received a BAFTA award for Best Documentary on February 22, 2026. The film shows the militarization of education in Russian schools.
The film "Mr. Nobody vs. Putin" won a BAFTA award in the "Best Documentary" category at a ceremony in London on February 22, 2026. The film, based on real footage from the life of an ordinary Russian school, reveals the mechanisms of militarization of education and the introduction of state ideology among children. This is reported by UNN.
Details
The material was authored by Pavlo Talankin, a former educator-organizer and videographer from the city of Karabash, Chelyabinsk Oblast. Starting in 2022, he filmed school assemblies, "Conversations about important things" lessons, and patriotic events that the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation required to be recorded. In 2024, Talankin managed to export the filmed archive from Russia and edit the film in cooperation with American documentarian David Borenstein.
The jury noted the courage of the authors in documenting the intense propaganda and the ease with which the state machine manipulates disinformation in educational institutions
International Recognition and the Road to the Oscars
The film has already won a special jury prize at the Sundance independent film festival in 2025 and was officially nominated by Denmark for the highest film awards. The BAFTA win strengthens the film's position ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony, which will take place on March 15, 2026.
Currently, "Mr. Nobody vs. Putin" is considered one of the most successful documentary projects of the year, demonstrating the internal transformation of Russian society in the context of war.