# RE-RELEASE: David Borenstein & The Best Documentary Oscar MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN (2025)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/first-time-go-6464248/re-release-david-borenstein-the-best-documentary-oscar-mr-nobody-against-putin-2025
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/first-time-go-6464248/re-release-david-borenstein-the-best-documentary-oscar-mr-nobody-against-putin-2025.md
Podcast: [First Time Go](https://stenobird.com/podcast/first-time-go-6464248)
Published: 2026-03-17T09:00:34+00:00
Episode link: https://redcircle.com/shows/9ddc691d-2273-47d5-a1b9-5a4acb0670f5/episodes/41a1cea6-b752-4f6b-b85f-2ec7fcf8743d
Audio file: https://audio4.redcircle.com/episodes/41a1cea6-b752-4f6b-b85f-2ec7fcf8743d/stream.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/first-time-go-6464248/episodes/re-release-david-borenstein-the-best-documentary-oscar-mr-nobody-against-putin-2025
Duration seconds: 1702

## Resource

Watch This Episode On YouTube RE-RELEASE: I'm re-releasing this episode, in part to congratulate the team behind MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN (2025) , who won the Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars, and also give further background to director David Borenstein's comments at the event. After you listen to this episode and hear about his background, his words come from experience. Congratulations, team. So well deserved. From December, 2025: Surely he didn't know it then, but his work in media in China made my guest, filmmaker David Borenstein, the perfect person to direct MR NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN (2025). It's a fantastic film following a Russian teacher "secretly documenting his school becoming a war recruitment center during the Ukraine invasion." What David and especially his co-director, Pasha Talankin did was make a film at great personal risk because it's so cutting towards the Russian authoritarian regime. And astonishingly, as David shares in the podcast, he wants to do more of these stories in repressed societies. Thank God there are people like David and Pasha. Denmark's nominee for best international film at the 2026 Oscars is an absolute gem. In this episode, David and I discuss: the simplicity of the documentary and whether the overwhelmingly positive reaction surprised him; how he got started in filmmaking and his familiarity with heavily propagandistic societies; the difference between journalism and documentary filmmaking (he has an incredible answer here); the debates with his co-director about the concept of propaganda; how cool it would be to see a documentary or podcast on the making of MR NOBODY; logistically, how did the film happen?; how his co-director became knowledgeable behind the camera; advice for anybody interested in doing a project like thi…

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