Oscar-winning director Pavel Talankin has revealed his Academy Award went missing after he was forced to check it in for a flight.
Talankin, a Russian teacher and documentary-maker, took home the statuette after his film Mr Nobody Against Putin won the Best Feature Documentary accolade at this year’s ceremony.
But the award went missing after he was forced to put it in the hold compartment on a flight. Thankfully, airline Lufthansa has since confirmed the Academy Award has been found, saying they are arranging for its return "as quickly as possible".
Talankin told Deadline that he arrived for a flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy airport with his Oscar in hand on Wednesday, but Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials told him he couldn’t take the prize onboard as it could be used as a weapon.
The director, who said he has flown with the Oscar in his cabin luggage more than a dozen times since his win in March, said he was told: “You have to check it under the plane.” As he didn’t have his own packaging for it, the Oscar was placed into a cardboard box provided by Lufthansa – but when the flight landed in Frankfurt, Germany, the statuette was nowhere to be seen.
Robin Hessman, the executive producer of Talankin’s Oscar-winning documentary, told the BBC she tried to help Talankin via a speakerphone call when the situation at JFK airport unfolded, as he does not speak fluent English.
"This wouldn't have happened to Leonardo DiCaprio," she said.
Talankin travels with the award to showcase it at events and screenings. During his visit to New York, he reportedly handed it around an audience of university students at Q&A session.
Lufthansa said in a statement: "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."
In a later update, it said: "The Oscar statue has now been located and is safely in our care in Frankfurt. "We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and have apologised to the owner. The careful and secure handling of our guests' belongings is of the utmost importance to us.
"An internal review of the circumstances is ongoing."
Talankin’s co-director David Borenstein had appealed for help on social media, writing in a post on Instagram: “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?”
While it certainly seems to be the first time on record that an Oscar has gone AWOL on a flight, numerous Academy Awards have gone missing over the years.
Matt Damon revealed in 2007 that the Academy Award he won for writing Good Will Hunting with Ben Affleck over 10 years earlier went missing from his New York apartment after a flood. “One of the sprinklers went off when my wife and I were out of town,” he said. “That was the last I saw of it.”
The Interstellar actor admitted that the Oscar may have been put in storage by someone who helped clean up the apartment, but it also may have been taken.
Thankfully, things went a little better for Frances McDormand when she was parted from her Oscar within hours of winning Best Actress for her performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
McDormand’s statuette went missing during the Governors Ball after party in 2018, however was reportedly recovered after a photographer spotted it being taken.
Criminal charges were brought against a self-described “producer, A-list host, entertainment journalist, actor, DJ and superstar” named Terry Bryant, who posted a video on Facebook of himself holding the statuette yet always maintained his innocence. The charges were later dismissed by a Los Angeles court.
