"Mr. Nobody Against Putin," which takes on the Russian leader's propaganda and patriotism program for the nation's youth after the invasion of Ukraine, won the Oscar for best documentary feature Sunday. "In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now," the film's protagonist and co-director Pavel Talankin said in Russian from the stage through a translator. Talankin was a teacher and activities director in a small-town school in Russia who captured on video his students' lessons, chants and songs promoting the war in Ukraine. He smuggled his hard drives out of the country to collaborate with American director David Borenstein, who lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. The two men gave the night some of its most overtly political moments during their speeches. Talankin said backstage that his students helped him write his. Borenstein spoke broadly about nations tipping into totalitarianism, while clearly emphasizing similarities between his country and Talankin's. "'Mr. Nobody Against Putin' is about how you lose your country," Borenstein said. "You lose it through countless small little acts of complicity." Cheers in the auditorium grew as Borenstein said you lose a country when "we don't say anything" when governments kill people in the streets and oligarchs seek to consolidate control over media outlets. "We all face a moral choice, but luckily even a nobody is more powerful than you think," Borenstein said. Asked about the award, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment, saying he hasn't seen the documentary. The war in Ukraine has loomed large in Oscar documentary categories since its beginning in 2022. The Associated Press' documentary "20 Days in Mariupol" won best documentary... Read More