Sundance film festival: A primary school teacher in Russia pushes back on cruel nationalist propaganda in a fascinating and daring look at everyday encroachment

Pavel Talankin is, by his own admission early in the extraordinary documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin, not the person you or he would pick to be the hero of the story or to take on an oppressive regime. To stand up to Vladimir Putin takes a considerable amount of courage and a not inconsiderable amount of resources; Pasha, as he is known to his students, is a teacher at a small primary school in Karabash, a mining town in the Ural mountains remarkable only for its renowned levels of toxic waste, and would have been more or less content to remain the titular nobody far from Moscow. He loves his hometown, its smokestacks and Soviet buildings, but most of all loves the curiosity and enthusiasm of his students, all filmed by Talankin in his capacity as school videographer.

But Talankin has always cut a bit of a non-conformist streak – he is the one teacher with a Russian democracy flag in his classroom, a safe haven for the school’s punks and artsy weirdos, or anyone with a desire to speak freely. He is openly alarmed, to the extent one can be, when the school begins enacting Vladimir Putin’s new “patriotic education policy” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He keeps doing his job, filming the new blatantly nationalist curriculum, the lies about the necessity of invasion told as fact, the forced military drills and oaths of loyalty forced on initially bored and apathetic children.

Mr Nobody Against Putin is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

A new film looking at the life and tragic death of the singer has premiered to an emotional response at this year’s Utah-based film festival

A new documentary celebrating the life and legacy of the late singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley premiered to an emotional crowd – including his mother and former bandmates – at the Sundance film festival.

Met with a standing ovation and plenty of tears, It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley delves into the troubadour’s influences, career and personal relationships cut short by his accidental drowning in Memphis’s Wolf River in May 1997, at the age of 30. Directed by Amy Berg, the 106-minute documentary includes numerous snapshots from Buckley’s many notebooks as well as a trove of childhood photos, archival recordings and interviews with those closest to him, who remember a sensitive and voraciously curious musical talent.

Sundance film festival: The Past Lives and September 5 actor leads a beautifully made, if slightly too withholding, road-trip drama

Omaha, Cole Webley’s debut film from a screenplay by Robert Machoian (The Killing of Two Lovers), is very much a product of the Sundance film festival, both literally – the duo first connected here – and, for better and occasionally for worse, in tone. Spare, elegiac, quiet but affecting, this John Magaro-led character study is, fittingly, filmed and mostly set in the festival’s home state (for now) of Utah. It’s a tense family drama that mostly keeps its cards close to the chest and an ode, at least visually, to the liminal, fragile states one can enter on the road in the American west.

The bedsheets are still warm and the dawn light still pale when Ella, played by remarkable newcomer Molly Belle Wright, and her younger brother Charlie (a charming Wyatt Solis) pile into the car at the behest of their tight-lipped father (Magaro). He refuses to say where they’re going beyond a “trip”, but from the way Magaro hunches his shoulders and shifts his gaze, you can assume it’s not for pleasure.

Omaha is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

Oscar-winning film-maker behind 20 Days in Mariupol returns to festival with bruising, on-the-ground look at ongoing conflict

A harrowing new documentary from Mstyslav Chernov on Ukraine’s ailing counteroffensive against the Russian invasion brought tears and a standing ovation to the Sundance film festival, two years after the film-maker premiered 20 Days in Mariupol, his Oscar-winning account of the siege’s first weeks.

In 2000 Meters from Andriivka, Chernov is once again beside fellow Ukrainians amid Russian attacks. But whereas 20 Days in Mariupol focused primarily on civilians killed, maimed or mourning during the initial Russian invasion in 2022, Andriivka embeds with Ukrainian soldiers during the military’s counteroffensive in the east throughout 2023, at a time when there was no other independent reporting from the war’s frontlines.