Back in March, Pavel “Pasha” Talankin gave a heartfelt speech in Russian on the stage of the Dolby theater in Los Angeles, Calif., holding an Oscar. This week, his trip back home to Europe resulted in the statuette going missing. By Friday it had been found and was safe in Germany.
Talankin’s journey to being reunited with the Academy Award really starts in 2022, when Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin began an invasion of Ukraine that violates international law. At the time, Talankin was a primary school teacher known for providing a safe haven for students in his office, according to the Siskel Film Center.
After the war started, Talankin was “reluctantly drawn into Putin’s propaganda machine,” and “forced to promote state-sanctioned messages,” the center explained. Eventually, he became an international whistleblower as well as the subject and co-director of the documentary film “Mr. Nobody Against Putin”.
When the film won best documentary film at the 98th Academy Awards earlier this year, it was a bit of a surprise, according to IndieWire. Another documentary – “The Perfect Neighbor” – was expected to win, said the outlet.
“In the name of our future, in the name of our children, stop all of these wars now,” Talankin said as he accepted his Oscar.
“‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ is about how you lose your country. And what we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless small little acts of complicity,” said his co-director, David Borenstein.
He was the one who sounded the alarm about Talankin’s missing Oscar in a Thursday Instagram post.
“Yesterday he arrived at JFK [Airport, in New York] 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,” Borenstein said. “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 [Hessman] got on the phone and tried to reason with her. It didn’t work.”
Since Talankin didn’t have a bag to check, Borenstein said the U.S. Transportation Security Administration personnel put his Oscar in a cardboard box and “sent it to the bottom of the plane.”
“Pavel took a picture of their brilliant solution,” Borenstein added.
That less-than-comforting solution foreshadowed Talankin’s arrival in Germany, where the statue couldn’t be located. Borenstein called on Germany-based Lufthansa for help in his Instagram post.
“Oh no! An Oscar missing - we hear you, and we're here to help,” said the airline in a comment. “Here's what happens next: we’re taking this on. And we take it super serious. Our team is ready to help track down the missing parcel and get it back where it belongs. We’re committed to make it happen. We will do everything we can to find the Oscar as fast as possible and have already escalated this.”
In a Friday update, the BBC reported that the Oscar had been located and was safely in the airline’s care in Frankfurt, Germany, citing Lufthansa. In a statement, the airline said an internal review of the circumstances was ongoing.
“We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and have apologized to the owner,” the airline said. “The careful and secure handling of our guests’ belongings is of the utmost importance to us.”
Borenstein noted in his initial Instagram post that he couldn’t find any other cases of Oscar winners needing to check their statuettes on a flight.
“Would Pavel have been treated the same way if he were a famous actor? Or a fluent English speaker?”
Joining the BBC from Copenhagen, Denmark, on Friday, Borenstein said that finding the award was “really good news,” and he thanked Linda from Lufthansa for her help. He also thanked everyone who spread the word about Talankin’s missing Oscar.
“The BBC has contacted the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which handles airport security and stopped Talankin from bringing his Oscar in his on-flight bag,” the outlet said.
