PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA

It’s Thanksgiving Day, 1970. In the vast Atlantic Ocean, a U.S. patrol boat meets a Soviet fishing vessel where a Lithuanian sailor jumps across the icy water onto the American boat in a frantic bid for freedom. To his horror, and to the outcry of the world media, the Americans return him to the Soviets.

Through rare archival footage and a dramatic, first-person re-enactment by the would-be defector – 86-year-old Simas Kudirka – this documentary brings to the big screen one of the most unpredictable political muddles of the Cold War.