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A Russian court has banned the distribution of the award-winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin, after authorities claimed the film promoted “negative attitudes” about the government and the war in Ukraine.
The ban on the documentary was issued by a Chelyabinsk court on Thursday after prosecutors said the film negatively portrayed Russia and promoted “extremism and terrorism”, according to AFP.
Directed by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin, the film follows Talankin – a school teacher – at a school in Karavash in Chelyabinsk region. His footage, secretly recorded over two years, chronicles how the Putin administration attempts to control public perception of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The powerful documentary shows how pro-war propaganda lessons and “patriotic displays” have been introduced in classrooms after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Talankin gave the footage to Borenstein, an American filmmaker living in Denmark, in 2024 – the same year he fled Russia.
Mr Nobody Against Putin won the Special Jury Award at Sundance, where it premiered in January 2025, and went on to win both the BAFTA and the Academy Award for Best Documentary earlier this month.
After receiving his Oscar, Talankin said: “For four years we have looked at the sky for shooting stars to make a very important wish. But there are countries where, instead of shooting stars, bombs fall from the sky and drones fly. In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now.”
“Mr Nobody Against Putin is about how you lose your country,” Borenstein said. “You lose it through countless small little acts of complicity. We all face a moral choice, but luckily even a nobody is more powerful than you think.”
Somewhat predictably, Russian news agency RIA Novosti left out the documentary category when it reported the Oscars results earlier this month.
The ruling by the Russian court prohibits the documentary’s distribution across the country, including on streaming platforms, “in the interests of an indefinite number of persons”.
Prosecutors also argued that schoolchildren had been filmed without parental consent.
Russia’s presidential human rights council said they would appeal to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and UNESCO to investigate the film’s production.
The Kremlin has continued to suppress opposition to the war. During a meeting with representatives of the culture council this week, Vladimir Putin bemoaned how Russian cinemas were showing “stupid and unnecessary” foreign films.
