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 this, especially when you aren't in the same place as your co-director!;
how he edited the project and who got the line credit for it;
how we can better support filmmakers in places like China and Russia;
when the film will be available for streaming and the challenges of finding distribution in the United States;
the clash between US and Europe distributors for documentary films;
what's next for him.

David's Indie Filmmaker Highlight: Nathan Fielder

Memorable Quotes:

"The co-director, he actually responded to a casting call in the beginning. So in the beginning, we were filming him as a character."

"The very first time that I was involved with cameras of any sort was actually as a Chinese speaking host on Chinese TV."

"if you are a quite fluent foreign speaker of Chinese living in China, they'll find you after a while. You are a curiosity to Chinese audiences."

"[John Grierson] defined documentary in a very special way. He didn't define it as journalism per se. He actually called it the propaganda of democracy."

"There were so many points where I thought about quitting or walking away 'cause it was so hard. But don't give up."

"The way I work with editors is I make a rough cut myself and then I deliver it to editors to work for a little bit of time to challenge me."

"I think it's really important as director to be generous."

"[The film] is resonating with people in Russia and not necessarily people who are already part of the Russian opposition."

"I'm still really interested in getting into the big kind of countries that we don't understand enough, Russia and China."

Links:

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