Oscar belonging to co-director of Putin film missing after TSA makes him ship it

The Oscar statuette belonging to Pavel Talankin, star and co-director of the Academy award-winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin , has disappeared after officials at New York’s John F Kennedy airport confiscated it before he boarded a flight, claiming it could be used as a weapon. Talankin, whose documentation of Russia’s propaganda machine in grade schools won international acclaim, told Deadline that he has brought the statuette on several flights without incident. But when he arrived at JFK’s terminal 1 on Wednesday morning, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents said he could not take the 8.5lb trophy on board because it posed a security risk. “It’s completely baffling how they consider an Oscar a weapon,” Talankin told the outlet after landing in Frankfurt, Germany, without the Oscar. On previous flights through numerous airlines, he said, “[I] flew with it in the cabin and there never was any kind of problem.” According to Talankin, an agent for the airline Lufthansa called the security checkpoint on Wednesday and offered to walk Talankin to the gate and maintain possession of the statuette for the duration of the flight, but the TSA agent reportedly refused any compromise. The film-maker says he was told he would have to check the prize under the plane. …