After being required to stow away his Academy Award during a trans-Atlantic flight, Pavel Talankin, a recent Oscar recipient, experienced the loss of his prized statuette until the airline located it after two days. Talankin, co-director of the acclaimed documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” was unexpectedly asked to check in his award for a flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to Frankfurt, Germany. The incident occurred when a Transportation Security Administration agent deemed the Oscar a potential weapon.
David Borenstein, Talankin’s co-director, shared the ordeal on Instagram, revealing that due to a lack of a suitable bag, the TSA boxed the Oscar and placed it in the lower compartment of the plane. Unfortunately, the award did not make it to Frankfurt as intended. Following Borenstein’s social media post, which garnered global attention, Lufthansa airline announced on Friday that the missing Oscar had been located and was now securely in their possession in Frankfurt. The airline expressed regret for the inconvenience caused and assured that arrangements were being made for the prompt return of the award to its rightful owner.
Lufthansa also mentioned that an internal investigation was underway to examine the circumstances surrounding the incident. In a separate development, in March, the documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” directed by Talankin and Borenstein, won the Academy Award for best documentary. The filmmakers’ acceptance speech at the ceremony was profoundly impactful. Talankin, known as the “Mr. Nobody” in the film, was a teacher in Russia who clandestinely recorded his students’ pro-war activities promoting Putin’s actions in Ukraine. He collaborated with Borenstein, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, after smuggling the footage out of Russia.
During his acceptance speech in Russian, translated for the audience, Talankin made a plea for peace, stating, “In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now.” As of Friday, there had been no immediate response from the TSA regarding inquiries regarding the incident.
