Oscar Trophy Lost: Russian filmmaker’s Oscar trophy went missing, security personnel at New York airport thought it was a weapon

Los Angeles. Russian filmmaker Pavel Talankin, co-director of the Academy Award-winning documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” lost his Oscar trophy when security officials at New York airport stopped him from flying with it. Talankin, who played the lead role in “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” which won best feature documentary at this year’s Academy Awards, said he was told by an official at John F Kennedy Airport on Wednesday that he could not take the trophy, which weighs about 3.8 kilograms, on the plane.

He said he has flown with the trophy more than a dozen times without incident since winning the Oscar in March. “It is completely incomprehensible how they consider the Oscar (trophy) a weapon… (I) have traveled with it in the cabin with me, and have never had any problems,” said Talankin, who arrived in Frankfurt, Germany on Thursday morning on a Lufthansa flight.

He said that a Lufthansa Airlines agent present at the checkpoint offered to escort him to the gate and keep the trophy for the entire duration of the flight, but the security officer refused. Talankin said a proposal to place the Oscar trophy in the cockpit was also rejected by airport security officials and a Lufthansa supervisor.

He contacted the film’s executive producer, Robin Heisman, asking him to help translate during his interactions with airport security officers and airline employees. With no alternative, Talankin was asked to register the prize as cargo. The filmmaker, who had already had his luggage checked, was given a cardboard box by airline officials, and then two agents wrapped the Oscar trophy in ‘bubble wrap’ and took it for transportation.

Talankin recorded this entire process on his phone. However, when the filmmakers reached Frankfurt, the box was nowhere to be found. “He (Talankin) called me this morning from Frankfurt and told me Lufthansa didn’t have it,” Heisman said. They have lost it (the trophy),” he said, adding that despite the compartment having a receipt tag, the airline could not locate it.

“We deeply regret this situation,” Lufthansa said in a statement to Hollywood news outlet Deadline. “Our team is treating this matter with the utmost care and urgency, and we are conducting an extensive internal search to locate and return the Oscar trophy as quickly as possible.”

According to the news outlet, living Oscar winners can, in rare cases where their award is lost or badly damaged, contact the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to request a replacement trophy. Talankin, a former teacher in Russia, is living in exile after defying a Kremlin order to impose nationalist and militaristic curriculum on Russian schools following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.