LOS ANGELES: Russian filmmaker Pasha Talankin, co-director of the Academy Award-winning documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin, has lost his Oscar statuette after security officials at New York’s JFK Airport refused to allow him to carry it on board a flight.
Talankin, who also appears in the film, said an official stopped him at a security checkpoint on Wednesday from taking the statuette into the cabin, citing concerns over its weight of approximately 3.8 kg.
He said he had travelled with the Oscar more than a dozen times since winning it in March without any issues.
“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 said from Frankfurt, Germany, where he arrived on Thursday on a Lufthansa flight.
According to Talankin, a Lufthansa agent offered to escort him to the gate and hold the statuette during the flight, but the proposal was rejected by security officials. A suggestion to store it in the cockpit was also turned down by both airport security and a Lufthansa supervisor.
The film’s executive producer, Robin Hessman, assisted Talankin over the phone by translating his exchanges with airport and airline staff.
With no alternative, Talankin was asked to check the award in as cargo. Although he had already checked in his luggage, airline staff provided him with a cardboard box, carefully wrapping the statuette in bubble wrap before sending it for transport — a process he recorded on his phone.
However, upon arrival in Frankfurt, the box was missing.
“He called me this morning from Frankfurt saying Lufthansa doesn’t have it. They’ve lost it,” Hessman said, adding that despite having a receipt tag, the airline had been unable to locate the item.
In a statement, Lufthansa said it “deeply regrets” the incident and is conducting a thorough internal search to recover the statuette as quickly as possible.
According to reports, Oscar winners can approach the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to request a replacement in rare cases where the award is lost or severely damaged.
Talankin, a former schoolteacher from an industrial Russian town, is currently living in exile after opposing a Kremlin directive to introduce a nationalistic and militaristic curriculum in schools following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin, directed by David Borenstein and co-directed by Talankin, chronicles his journey from a respected educator to a political outcast.
(With inputs from PTI)