Class war The film that reveals Putin propaganda in schools

As Russian tanks advanced into Ukraine in February 2022, Vladimir Putin was waging a parallel battle on the home front - one fought not with weapons but with ideology, reaching deep into the nation's classrooms.

- Pjotr Sauer

In a high school in Karabash, a small industrial town in the Ural mountains, teacher Pavel Talankin knew he had to document it. Almost overnight, the school and the tight-knit community where the free-spirited Talankin, known as Pasha to his students, had embraced his role as a nonconformist educator was overtaken by militarisation and war propaganda. As the school's longtime videographer, Talankin was instructed by his superiors to document the implementation of the Kremlin's new directive: shaping a generation steeped in ultra-nationalist views and ready to join the ranks of the army fighting in Ukraine.

Fiercely against the war, Talankin set out to capture and showcase an unfiltered view of how Putin's war on Ukraine was shaping the lives of Russia's children. "I immediately knew this had to be preserved for the historical record. I quickly realised this material can't be lost," Talankin said.

The recordings would turn into Mr Nobody Against Putin, a thrilling documentary that premiered last month at the Sundance film festival, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award.