Oscar missing after Academy Award winner banned from taking it on flight over 'weapon' fears

An Oscar has gone missing after an Academy Award winner was blocked from taking it on a flight in his carry-on bag because of fears it could be ‘used as a weapon’. Oscar winner Pavel Talankin was forced to check his golden statuette for his documentary ‘Mr Nobody Against Putin’ at a New York airport. His colleague, who tried to translate for Mr Talankin in the airport on speaker phone, said: "This wouldn't have happened to Leonardo DiCaprio." Robin Hessman, the award-winning BBC documentary’s executive producer, said she had helped Talankin talk to the TSA because his English is not fluent. She told the BBC that he'd flown multiple times with his Oscar he won on March 15th and also his Bafta, across the US and on international flights, and never had any issues before. But on this occasion Pavel, 35, was stopped from taking the Academy Award on the plane in his carry-on bag for a flight to Germany on Wednesday. Airport security stopped him at John F Kennedy International Airport because they said the award could be used as a weapon. It was put into the hold in a cardboard box as he didn’t have a checked bag but when he landed in Germany, the Oscar was gone. His co-director David Borenstein posted on Instagram : “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. “Pavel didn’t 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. It never arrived in Frankfurt…I’ve looked and 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?" Lufthansa airlines, which helped him pack the award in a box for the flight, told the BBC their team is treating the incident with "care and urgency" and they are doing a "comprehensive internal search" for the award. In a statement, the airline said: "We deeply regret this situation. Our team is treating this matter with the utmost care and urgency, and we are conducting a comprehensive internal search to ensure the Oscar is found and returned as quickly as possible." An Academy Award stands 13.5in tall (34cm) and weighs 8.5lb (3.9 kg). It reportedly costs around £740 to create the statuette. ‘Mr Nobody Against Putin’ is a documentary about one man taking on Russia. Videographer Talankin secretly documented his primary school becoming a war recruitment centre. He filmed the new curriculum, the forced military drills and oaths of loyalty forced on the children. His film exposed the war propaganda in the Russian school, where he worked, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Heartbroken he shows his classroom as it slowly empties of its students distracted by the war which has seen family and friends conscripted. The Kremlin branded him a ‘foreign agent’ since he has been living in exile in Prague. Russia banned the documentary claiming it ‘propagates extremism and terrorism’ and he is now exiled from Russia for his own safety and living elsewhere in Europe. In a previous interview he has told why he loves the film and who it is for. “I saw one comment where a (Russian) woman wrote: ‘I watched the film and didn’t understand who it’s for.’ But you watched it from beginning to end. You found it somewhere (since it’s not screened in Russia ), sat down, watched the whole thing and then you say you don’t know who it’s for? It’s for you. You answered your own question.” When asked if there was anything in the film he didn’t include but would have liked to, he told The Moscow Times: “There’s a lot of footage and many storylines that didn’t make it in. For example, how teachers are pressured to contribute money to the so-called ‘special military operation.’ “