NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� After being forced to check his on a trans-Atlantic flight, recent winner Pavel Talankin’s Oscar went missing before an airline tracked it down two days later.
Talankin, who co-directed the didn’t expect to have to check his statuette for a flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport bound for Frankfurt, Germany, on Wednesday. But a Transportation Security Administration agent said it couldn’t go on board.
鈥淎t the airport, a TSA agent stopped him and said the Oscar could be used as a weapon,鈥� Talankin’s co-director, David Borenstein, said Thursday night in a post on Instagram.
鈥淧avel didn鈥檛 have a bag to check it in, so the TSA put the Oscar in a box and sent it to the bottom of the plane,鈥� added Borenstein. 鈥淚t never arrived in Frankfurt.鈥�
After Borenstein’s announcement prompted an international outcry, the airline Lufthansa on Friday said it had found the lost Oscar.
鈥淲e can confirm that the Oscar statue has now been located and is safely in our care in Frankfurt,鈥� the airline said in statement. 鈥淲e are in direct contact with the guest to arrange its personal return as quickly as possible. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and have apologized to the owner.鈥�
Lufthansa added that an 鈥渋nternal review of the circumstances is ongoing.鈥�
In March, 鈥淢r. Nobody Against Putin鈥� won the Academy Award for best documentary, and Talankin and Borenstein’s acceptance speech supplied one of the most memorable moments of the ceremony.
Talankin 鈥� the 鈥淢r. Nobody鈥� of the film 鈥� was a teacher and activities director in a small-town school in Russia who captured on video his students鈥� lessons, chants and songs promoting Putin’s war in Ukraine. He smuggled his hard drives out of the country to collaborate with Borenstein, who lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Talankin, speaking in Russian through a translator, said from the stage: 鈥淚n the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now.鈥�
The TSA didn’t immediately respond to queries Friday.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
