1 month ago
EXCLUSIVE: Pasha Talankin’s Oscar for Mr. Nobody Against Putin has vanished aft TSA officials astatine JFK airdrome successful New York refused to fto him committee a formation pinch nan statuette, declaring it could beryllium utilized arsenic a weapon.
Talankin, nan co-director and protagonist of nan Best Feature Documentary winner, tells Deadline he has flown a twelve aliases much times pinch nan Oscar since earning nan grant successful March, each clip without incident. But erstwhile he showed up astatine a information checkpoint astatine JFK’s Terminal 1 connected Wednesday, a TSA supplier told him he couldn’t return nan Oscar – which weighs 8.5 lbs. – connected board.
“It’s wholly baffling really they see an Oscar a weapon,” Talankin told america from Frankfurt, Germany, wherever he arrived Thursday greeting connected a Lufthansa flight. On erstwhile flights connected various airlines, he said, “[I] flew pinch it successful nan compartment and location ne'er was immoderate benignant of problem.”
Talankin says a Lufthansa supplier called to nan information checkpoint connected Wednesday offered to locomotion nan filmmaker to nan gross and support possession of his statuette for nan long of nan flight, but a TSA supplier refused that compromise. Talankin says that Lufthansa supplier besides projected storing nan Oscar successful nan cockpit during nan flight, but TSA and a Lufthansa supervisor overruled that idea.
“You person to cheque it nether nan plane,” Talankin says he was told. The Russian-born head contacted Mr. Nobody Against Putin executive shaper Robin Hessman – who speaks Russian — to thief construe for him arsenic he said pinch TSA and Lufthansa agents.
“The female from TSA was perfectly intractable,” Hessman told Deadline. Without a hard-sided suitcase of his ain to shop nan Oscar, Talankin says Lufthansa provided him pinch a cardboard container to location it for nan formation to Frankfurt. As he videotaped connected his phone, 2 Lufthansa agents bubble-wrapped nan Oscar, handed him a tag for nan point and took nan container disconnected for carrier connected nan flight.
But erstwhile Talankin arrived him Frankfurt, nan container was obscurity to beryllium found.
“[Pasha] calls maine this greeting from Frankfurt saying Lufthansa doesn’t person it. They mislaid it,” Hessman said. “He has a summons number [for nan box] and they can’t find it.”
Deadline has contacted Lufthansa and nan TSA for comment. We will update this communicative if we perceive from them.
Talankin, who was a people schoolhouse pedagogue successful an business Russian town, has been surviving successful exile aft defying a Kremlin instruction to enforce a nationalistic and militaristic program connected each Russian schools aft nan country’s full-scale penetration of Ukraine. The movie directed by David Borenstein and co-directed by Talankin, documents really he went from being a beloved personnel of nan schoolhouse unit to a pariah.
In an Instagram post, Borenstein tagged Lufthansa and nan TSA, writing, “I’ve looked and I can’t find a azygous different lawsuit of personification being forced to cheque an Oscar. Would Pavel person been treated nan aforesaid measurement if he were a celebrated actor? Or a fluent English speaker?” The station has received dozens of comments, including 1 from a personification who wrote, tagging Lufthansa, “This is unacceptable. Find and return this Oscar, aliases salary nan Academy Awards to switch it.”
Another wrote successful consequence to Borenstein’s post, “This is perfectly INSANE. I’m truthful sorry and furious that happened to Pavel. How galore different Oscars traveled backmost to Europe safely…or BAFTAS aliases Emmys (now those are existent weapons)!”
