Oscar-winning director David Borenstein claimed his Academy Award on Sunday night and used the moment to rant against governments that commit murder on the streets and unnamed oligarchs who “take over the media.”
The Copenhagen-based American director won his best documentary award for Mr Nobody Against Putin, a primary school teacher’s record of the indoctrination of his pupils to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Pavel Talankin, who is now in exile in Europe, shared the honors with Borenstein who bathed in the public spotlight and went into his political rant, declaring “Mr. Nobody Against Putin was about how you lose your country. What we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless small little acts of complicity. When we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities. When we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce it and consume it. We all face a moral choice. But luckily even a nobody is more powerful than you think.”
Borenstein’s speech drew unsubtle parallels between the story they captured in Russia and recent actions he claims to see in the United States.
In particular, Borenstein referenced the work of ICE in cities like Minneapolis rounding up illegal immigrants and concerns over Paramount’s potential ownership of both CBS and CNN under David Ellison following a potential Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.
Borenstein later expanded on his comments backstage in the Oscars’ press room, mentioning Donald Trump by name as he talked about the situation he sees evolving in the United States.
“One interesting thing about working with a team of Russians throughout this process has been my desire, as an American, to constantly compare the situation in America to Russia,” he said.
“But a lot of my Russian colleagues and friends always said, ‘No, it’s not the same situation. It’s actually happening quicker in America than it’s been happening in Russia. Trump was moving a lot quicker than Putin in his early years.’ So that’s kind of all I have to say to that.”
