Oscar for ‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ goes missing after airport security forces check-in

The Oscar statuette belonging to Russian filmmaker Pavel ‘Pasha’ Talankin, co-director of the documentary ‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’, was briefly lost and later recovered after airport security at John F. Kennedy International Airport forced him to check the award into the aircraft hold, triggering a mix-up that left the trophy missing upon arrival in Frankfurt, before Lufthansa located it hours later.

Talankin, who also appears as the protagonist in the documentary, said that during a security screening on Wednesday, an official stopped him from bringing the 3.8-kilogram award into the cabin. He noted he had travelled more than a dozen times with the Oscar since winning it in March without incident.

"It's completely baffling how they consider an Oscar a weapon... (I) flew with it in the cabin, and there never was any kind of problem," Talankin told the outlet from Frankfurt, where he arrived on Thursday morning on a Lufthansa flight.

A Lufthansa agent at the checkpoint offered to escort him to the gate and hold the statuette during the flight, but the security official refused, he said. A suggestion to store the Oscar in the cockpit was also overruled by airport security and a Lufthansa supervisor.

The documentary’s executive producer, Robin Hessman, was contacted by Talankin to help translate his exchanges with security officials. With no alternatives, Talankin was required to check the trophy as cargo. Airline staff provided a cardboard box and bubble-wrapped the statuette, a process he recorded on his phone.

When he landed in Frankfurt, however, the box was missing.

"He calls me this morning from Frankfurt saying Lufthansa doesn't have it. They lost it," Hessman said, adding that although Talankin had a receipt tag, the airline could not locate the package.

Lufthansa said in a statement to Deadline: "We deeply regret this situation. Our team is treating this matter with the utmost care and urgency, and we are conducting a comprehensive internal search to ensure the Oscar is found and returned as quickly as possible."

According to the outlet, living Oscar recipients may request a replacement statuette from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in rare cases when an award is lost or severely damaged.

Talankin, a former grade-school educator from an industrial Russian town, has been living in exile after refusing a Kremlin directive to implement a nationalistic curriculum following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The documentary, directed by David Borenstein and co-directed by Talankin, charts his transformation from a respected teacher to an outcast.

On Friday, Lufthansa confirmed it had located the missing statuette after what it described as an intensive internal search. The airline said it had apologised to Talankin for the incident and would return the Oscar to him "as quickly as possible", adding that an internal review into how the award went missing was ongoing.

The film, made using footage Talankin smuggled out of Russia, created a stir when it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature earlier this year. Talankin told Deadline he had travelled multiple times with the award without any trouble. "It's completely baffling how they consider an Oscar a weapon," he said.

A Lufthansa agent had offered to accompany him and keep hold of the award during the flight, but the plan was blocked by a Transportation Security Administration official, according to Deadline.
(With inputs from agencies)