‘Some parents said they’d break my knees’: the teacher who exposed Putin’s primary school propaganda

‘They said this person did not exist and does not exist and this film did not exist and does not exist’ … Pavel Talankin. Photograph: Pavel Talankin

In order to watch the Oscar-nominated documentary in which many of them have starring roles, pupils at Karabash School No 1 have had to source bootlegged copies, viewing the film in private, on their phones or their laptops.

Last week’s Bafta best documentary win for Mr Nobody Against Putin has been studiously ignored by Russian state media, and the prize the film won at Sundance last year was also met with silence. Staff at the school and government officials in the Kremlin seem united in their desire to pretend that they know nothing about the film.