On a beautiful spring morning in Copenhagen, a newly minted superstar walks into the courtyard of the imposing Charlottenborg Museum. Danish producer Helle Faber. Just five days ago, Mr. Nobody Against Putin won the Oscar for best documentary in what many are calling an upset. Unnoticed by some of the many people who stop to congratulate her as we take a short walk across the city’s famous canals, the veteran carries the iconic golden statuette inside a tattered individual moss green tote bag.
The Oscars ceremony coincided with the opening weekend of Copenhagen’s documentary festival CPH:DOX, and the atmosphere in the Danish capital was one of immense national pride and huge support from the documentary industry. Over coffee, Faber said it felt a little “insane” to be back in Denmark after a whirlwind few weeks in Los Angeles. On the flight home, the producer was invited to sit alongside the pilot in the cockpit — with Oscar safely cradled in his lap, of course. Upon landing, airport staff sprayed a 6-meter-tall column of water into the sky so Faber could be greeted with a rainbow. Everyone from security guards to Uber drivers to waitresses congratulated her.
Helle Faber sits next to the pilot on a return flight from Los Angeles to Copenhagen (Courtesy of Helle Faber)
“Everyone on the plane last night had their hands on this guy,” Faber joked when the Queen’s marching band briefly interrupted our conversation during the daily noontime procession. She gestured for me to stand up for the fanfare, then remembered the statuette on the table. She still can’t believe it.
Directed by American director David Borenstein and Russian teacher-turned-director Pavel Tarankin, Mr. Nobody Against Putin is an inside look at how Russia turned schools into propaganda machines during the war in Ukraine. The documentary, which premiered at Sundance in 2025, slowly took off at the festival and became an unlikely Best Documentary Oscar nominee, beating out the Netflix-backed favorite “Perfect Neighbor” in one of the awards’ biggest upsets.
“We were fighting the same battles as Netflix and publicists all over the world,” jokes a good-humoured Faber. “We had to do everything ourselves. It was a very grassroots operation. We relied on people giving us free screenings. We couldn’t afford previews of Soho House or food or drink or anything like that. We worked with people who just wanted to support us. We put a lot of effort into the digital campaign, so it finally started to feel like we had some momentum, and when we received the nominations, we actually thought we had a chance.” However, she points out that “nothing happens without a strong film.” “And we made a powerful movie,” she says with a smile.
Helle Faber poses with the majestic Oscar statue in a café in Copenhagen (Courtesy of Rapha Sales Ross)
Borenstein, speaking by phone from Los Angeles as she was packing up her belongings before returning to Copenhagen, said the shock had not yet completely worn off. “The last few days have been really, really crazy.”
Ahead of the ceremony, the director echoed Faber’s slow-burning confidence about their chances of winning, adding that they were “the last time they started a campaign off the Oscar nomination list.” “A lot of these movies had been campaigning since the beginning of the year, and if we had known what an Oscar campaign was, we probably would have done the same thing. We didn’t know about the process. It was definitely in the fall that we started dreaming about the fact that we might possibly be able to be part of a campaign.”
So how did it feel to hear his name called on stage on March 15th? “It was a huge shock. And I immediately went into game mode, like I’m going to stand there and give a speech. What you’re thrown into afterwards is incredible pomp and circumstance. You get sent backstage, you do some more interviews, and then right after that, your team comes to celebrate with you, you join them at the party.”
David Borenstein speaks to the BBC from the disabled toilet at a post-Oscars party (Courtesy of David Borenstein)
At one such party, the filmmaker was desperately searching for a quiet corner to give an interview with the BBC, and had to rely on a disabled toilet. “So this is a night photo,” he joked amusingly as he shared a snippet of himself sitting on the toilet with a glass of champagne in one hand, a phone in the other, and a shiny new award on the sink. “There was definitely nothing memorable about that night,” he continued. “The next day I suddenly realized how tired I was. I couldn’t even get out of bed. It’s crazy. I think I’m just tired now.”
Borenstein gave the most overtly political acceptance speech of the night, saying his film was about “how you lose your country.” “And what we saw while working on this footage is that we lose it through countless tiny little acts of collusion. When we collude when governments kill people on the streets of big cities, when we say nothing when oligarchies take over the media and control how we produce and consume it. We all face moral choices, but luckily no one is more powerful than you think.”
Helle Faber and David Borenstein with Oscar statuette, courtesy of David Borenstein
Asked about why he felt it was so important to utter such words on Hollywood’s most prominent stage, the director said he made the film “to show what was behind a full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” but that the story “started to take on a double meaning” after it was shown shortly after the start of Donald Trump’s second term. “It became a broader story about how institutions and democracies disappear.”
“As I sat at the ceremony, I knew I wanted to give a speech that spoke not only about Russia, but also about the United States,” he continued. “I thought it was important. What I learned about resistance is that it’s important to say something when we have the ability to say something. If Pasha was able to find his voice as a teacher in the small town of Kaibos, why can’t others? He had a lot at stake, and we have much less. Let’s just say what needs to be said.”
Faber added that Borenstein’s speech also informed Mr. Nobody Against Putin’s overall strategy. “When you make a film that exposes a very brave man, you have to be brave as a director and as a producer,” she says. “I’m very pleased with David’s speech. A lot of people felt that this movie resonated with what’s going on in America right now. I also feel that the Oscar show made it clear that people don’t want to talk about what’s going on anymore. That night, we made statements like that. If it had been three years ago, it would have been completely different. Maybe Hollywood would have been silent.
David Borenstein poses with Lucy Cong at the Oscars and BBC Storyville, calling him ‘Mr Nobody Against Putin’, an ‘absolutely important person’ and ‘first person to support’ (Courtesy of David Borenstein)
Referring to the recently announced deal between Paramount and Warner Bros., Borenstein emphasized that he is “not at all afraid of what will happen to America’s media landscape if Paramount swallows up so much of this country’s media landscape.” “What’s happening in America right now is actually happening faster than what was happening in Russia during President Putin’s first few years. The scale of media consolidation that we’ve seen on CBS, and that we’re going to see on CNN and Paramount, is truly astonishing. If you don’t protect your organization, you’re going to lose it. Why can’t we just be screaming at the top of our lungs from a very tall building?”
On a related note, the director said he made the film in Denmark because it is “very difficult to get funding in America right now” for a project like “Mr. Nobody Against Putin.” Borenstein, who also previously lived in China, “knew the strength of Denmark’s public institutions and how they were the only institutions to invest in such risky political projects.”
“I’m an American living in Europe because there I can get the funding to make the movies I want to make,” he continues. “It is very important to have an alternative model to the American system, and it is important now that Europe stands by itself and does not allow itself to be defined by American technology trends and media landscapes.”
Airplane pilot Helle Faber cheerfully poses with an Oscar statue upon arrival in Copenhagen (Courtesy of Helle Faber)
Most of the film’s European partners visited Los Angeles during the final days of the Oscar trail. Borenstein’s heart was “full” after meeting everyone on the ground. “We were a big, awkward European Union team, made up of people from the BBC, the Czech Republic, the Danish Film Institute, and broadcasters from all over Europe,” he says. “During this Oscar race, part of me thought we were powerless. How could we compete with the streamers? But at the Oscars, there was a section of us cheering the loudest.”
“We saw tremendous strength in this international European co-production model,” he added. “We had strong advocates in different countries, speaking different languages, who were passionate about the film and who firmly supported our film. This gave us strength.” Faber agreed, noting that Denmark’s official film agency allows producers to “take risks and make films like this.”
“I cannot stress enough how important public institutions are, not only in Denmark but around the world,” says the producer. “We don’t have that anymore in the United States. If we want to ensure democracy and freedom of speech, we have to support these institutions in Europe.”
Mr. Nobody Against Putin was produced by Made in Copenhagen’s Helle Faber and co-produced by Aljuveta Karaskova and Radovan Sibut of Czech production company Pink. Other co-producers include the Danish Film Institute, Czech Film Fund, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, FilmFyn, Frit ord, Hermod Lannungs Fond, BBC Storyville, DR, ZDF, ARTE, NRK, SVT, RTS, DR Sales, VPRO, UPP and Edithouse Fyn.
