As Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, primary schools across Russia’s hinterlands are transformed into recruitment stages for the war. Facing the ethical dilemma of working in a system defined by propaganda and violence, a brave teacher goes undercover to film what’s really happening in his own school. In his hometown in the Ural Mountains, fun-loving Pasha works as a nonconformist teacher at the same primary school he attended as a child. However, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine changed everything. Suddenly the school and community he loved transformed from a place of education and self-expression to one of militarization and state ideology. Soon, his own students and their family members are recruited to fight, and Pasha must ask himself what one person can do. Filmed secretly over two years, Mr. Nobody Against Putin is an unforgettable portrait of life in Russia today and the impossible choices citizens face when the country they love is in the hands of a ruler who demands it become something they cannot accept.

Yana is a 24-year-old rural migrant who recently arrived in Chongqing to pursue her “Chinese Dream.” Drawn by the glamour and easy riches of China’s historic real estate boom, she opens a foreigner rental agency designed to help Chinese real estate developers market their new developments. But this business takes a dubious turn as her foreigners are increasingly used in a surreal effort to turn remote rural ghost towns into “globalized booming cities” on the days that outside investors and political leaders visit.