Germany’s major carrier Lufthansa said Friday it has found the Oscar statuette of Russian director Pavel Telankin, who won best documentary this year for “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” which was lost Thursday while flying with the airline from New York to Frankfurt.
Lufthansa expressed “regret” over the incident, saying it had launched an internal search “with the utmost caution and urgency” to reclaim the Oscar.
Hours later, the airline issued a new statement saying that “We can confirm that the Oscar statuette is now in our care in Frankfurt” and that it was going to hand it back to Talankin “as soon as possible”.
Luthansa offered no explanation as to how the coveted award went missing from its plane, saying “an internal review into how this happened is still ongoing.”
“We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and have apologized to the owner,” Lufthansa said.
TSA bans Oscar from cabin
Talankin was forced to check the prize in carry-on luggage on a flight from New York to Germany, after which the statuette disappeared.
The TSA, US airport security, prevented the filmmaker from taking the statue on the plane, saying it could be used as a weapon.
When Talankin reached Frankfurt, the box in which it was kept could not be found.
Talking to online magazine deadline After arriving in Germany on Thursday, Talankin said it was “completely baffling how they treated the Oscar as a weapon.”
The 35-year-old videographer said he had brought the trophy with him in the cabin on previous flights on various airlines, “and never had any kind of problem.”
Talankin’s documentary was based on footage he gathered at a school in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, where he worked to show how students were exposed to pro-war messages. He fled Russia in 2024.
Edited by: Dmytro Lyubenko