This documentary is short listed for the 2026 Oscars and is an easy way to see just how destructive to a society totalitarian regimes are. Putin is putting a generation of Russians at risk, and for what? Much like his American counterpart, it is all about his ego and nothing about his country.
This is an easy way to see that. It is a clandestine collaboration between high-school video-maker Pavel “Pasha” Talankin and Copenhagen-based American director David Borenstein. Talankin clearly loves his job as a teacher, events organiser and official videographer at the biggest high school in Karabash, a remote industrial town nestled in the Urals around 1100 miles east of Moscow. Although Karabash is infamous for its toxic climate and short life expectancy, Talankin expresses only deep fondness for his shabby home town and its citizens.
Already a compulsive video diarist, Talankin is well-placed to document the official wave of pro-military propaganda that sweeps Russia following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. These Kremlin-imposed changes heavily impact the school routine, where a new “patriotic education” curriculum forces glum-faced students to take part in daily flag-waving ceremonies, study revised pro-Russian history books, join paramilitary youth clubs and even attend lectures by Wagner Group mercenaries. If these methods sound familiar, most are throwbacks to the darkest days of the Soviet Union. Children are once again being brainwashed to blindly obey a ruling party elite. In the case of adolescent boys, they are also being groomed for imminent military conscription.
This timely documentary offers a highly personal, emotional charged insider’s view of how Putin’s ongoing imperial aggression is proving corrosive and divisive on the domestic front, destroying young lives and forcing even mild-mannered educators to risk everything by speaking truth to power. Talankin is now living in exile for his own safety.
No comments:
Post a Comment