A Russian schoolteacher smuggled footage abroad and made an award-winning documentary about wartime propaganda. Here’s how his hometown reacted.

Karabash used to be called “the most polluted city in the world,” but then, in 2025, it achieved fame thanks instead to the documentary film Mr. Nobody against Putin. Now the film is up for an Oscar. The film’s co-director, 34-year-old school events coordinator Pavel Talankin, filmed patriotic school events in Karabash and then left Russia, taking the footage with him. As soon as the film was released in the West, Russian media labeled it “anti-patriotic,” and called Talankin a traitor to the...