Pavel “Pasha” Talankin is a popular enthusiastic Russian school teacher who likes small-town life, bad weather, and even dirty panel buildings. His life is disrupted by the war, as he, an employee of an educational institution, must become its instrument.

Caught in the centre of a propaganda apparatus that is engulfing society, he is tasked with documenting everything with a camera. But he interprets this in his own way and records things as they really are, not as the military regime wants them to be.

The film, directed by Danish documentarist David Borenstein, was made using material that Pasha took out of Russia when he realised he was attracting too much attention and that a noose was tightening round his neck. The result is a quiet, intimate, and for that very reason devastating image of the skewed educational system, and by extension, the entire country.

Basic information about the film