Overview
- Lufthansa confirmed Friday that Pavel Talankin’s Oscar was located in its Frankfurt facilities and said it is arranging a personal handover to the filmmaker.
- The statuette went missing after a TSA agent at New York’s JFK on Wednesday deemed it a potential weapon and required it to be placed in a cardboard box for checked hold transport.
- Talankin had flown more than a dozen times with the award as a carry‑on since the March Oscars without issues, prompting his co‑director to question whether fame or language fluency affected the decision.
- The airline apologized and opened an internal review into how the boxed award was routed and briefly lost, while the TSA offered no immediate public response to media questions.
- Talankin, a former teacher who fled Russia in 2024, won Best Documentary Feature for a film built from footage of pro‑war lessons in schools, and the flap is likely to fuel scrutiny of how security rules are applied to personal trophies and high‑value items.