The Oscar belonging to the co-director of the documentary 'Mr Nobody Against Putin' has gone missing after the US’ TSA would not allow him to carry statuette on his Lufthansa flight from New York.
Russian filmmaker Pavel Talankin, the co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin, is looking for his Oscar.
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The trophy has been lost after the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at New York’s JFK airport confiscated his award.
In a social media post, Talankin’s co-director David Borenstein made a plea to help find it.
Borenstein wrote: “Yesterday he arrived at JFK ready to fly home to Europe, carrying the Oscar as a carry-on. I snapped the first picture here of him on his way out. At the airport, a TSA agent stopped him and said the Oscar could be used as a weapon. She wouldn’t let him carry it on board. Our EP Robin got on the phone and tried to reason with her. It didn’t work."
The TSA – which is an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security – told Talankin he would have to check in the statuette - sorry, "potential weapon" - under the plane.
A cardboard box was given by Lufthansa, and Talankin recorded two airline agents as they wrapped the Oscar, tagged it, and took it off.
However, when the Lufthansa flight landed in Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday morning, Talankin’s statue was gone.
“I’ve looked and I can’t find a single other case of someone being forced to check an Oscar. Would Pavel have been treated the same way if he were a famous actor? Or a fluent English speaker?” wrote Borenstein.
His post has gone viral, with people commenting on the ridiculousness of the situation. One wrote: “This is absolutely INSANE. I’m so sorry and furious that happened to Pavel. How many other Oscars traveled back to Europe safely… or BAFTAS or Emmys (now those are real weapons)!”
Speaking to Deadline, Talankin said: “It’s completely baffling how they consider an Oscar a weapon.”
If Talankin’s statue doesn’t show up, the rule goes that living Oscar winners can request replacement statuettes in the rare event of damage or loss.
Talankin, a former school videographer in Karabash, Russia, now lives in exile in Europe after fleeing his home country with the footage that would become Mr Nobody Against Putin.
The film is based on secretly recorded footage by Talankin, who exposes how the Putin administration aims to indoctrinate schoolchildren in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The powerful documentary shows how pro-war propaganda lessons and “patriotic displays” have been introduced in classrooms after 2022.
The film won the Oscar for Best Documentary earlier this year.
After receiving his Oscar, Talankin said: “For four years we have looked at the sky for shooting stars to make a very important wish. But there are countries where, instead of shooting stars, bombs fall from the sky and drones fly. In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now.”
“Mr Nobody Against Putin is about how you lose your country,” Borenstein said. “You lose it through countless small little acts of complicity. We all face a moral choice, but luckily even a nobody is more powerful than you think.”
In March, we reported how a Russian court has banned the distribution of the award-winning film, after authorities claimed the film promoted “negative attitudes” about the government and the war in Ukraine. Prosecutors also argued that schoolchildren had been filmed without parental consent.
Russia’s presidential human rights council said they would appeal to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and UNESCO to investigate the film’s production.
The Kremlin has continued to suppress opposition to the war. During a meeting with representatives of the culture council in March, Vladimir Putin bemoaned how Russian cinemas were showing "stupid and unnecessary" foreign films.
As of publication, an Oscar is still missing...
