I love a good documentary. This time of year between Oscar nominations and the Oscars show is like Christmas for documentary lovers. A lot of the films become available to stream on some platform or at least become available to rent. In 2023, one of those movies was titled Navalny, after the Russian lawyer and opposition leader, who was sentenced in 2022 to nine years in prison. In 2024, Navalny’s death in a Russian prison was announced and even though terribly sad, it was not shocking to the community of people who knew what he was up against.
When Navalny won the Oscar for best documentary feature no one was surprised. Navalny was gripping, disturbing, touching, and so incredibly sad. But so important. I have been interested in documentaries from inside Russia or from countries they invade, see 20 Days in Mariupol, since then. You can watch 20 Days at this site. It won best documentary feature at the Oscars in 2024.
The latest and greatest documentary feature smuggled out of Russia is Mr. Nobody Against Putin. It’s available to rent on Amazon Prime (that’s how I watched it). Although it is not as polished, nor as well known as Navalny and 20 Days, its story is pivotal in understanding today’s Russia, especially their now four-year-old war with Ukraine. Mr. Nobody is about an events coordinator at a primary school in Russia’s industrial heartland who was also the only videographer at the school. His name is Pavel and he was constantly filming, thus making himself a bit of an accidental documentarian when he gets in touch with someone outside of Russia who is interested in his footage.
The footage Pavel collects is at first general reactions to the war with Ukraine, but it takes a radical turn when Putin launches a national education program with scripted, patriotic speeches from every teacher in the school. Time spent learning nosedives. Grades tank. And Pavel, well he very conveniently is in charge of filming the rollout of this propaganda, which gets weirder and weirder. Students get scripted responses to the scripted questions asked of them. Military marching is frequently practiced in the hallways. The Wagner Group even comes to the school and makes a presentation, holding a grenade-throwing contest for boys not much older than my son.
The footage is sickening, but like Navalny and 20 Days, essential viewing if you want to educate yourself about Russian leaders and what Ukraine, and frankly the rest of the world, is up against. The movie would not exist if Pavel did not escape Russia with his hard drives and memory cards. He leaves behind a city he truly loved, a mom who works as a librarian at the primary school, and dozens of current and former students who consider him a true friend. But, under Putin, Pavel was at risk of being sentenced to prison for 15 to 25 years under new and old laws which punish Russians who spread “false information” or dissent against Russian activities or leaders.
Pavel will likely never be allowed back into Russia. Like any well-known Russian dissenter he also faces the threat of Putin’s ire, which does not respect boundaries, sovereignty, or international law. It was a great risk, and still is, for Pavel to have made this movie. It faces tough competition at the Oscars this year, but of the 4 out of 5 Oscar-nominated documentaries I have watched this year, it gets my vote.
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