ithuania-Latvia-France-USA, 2020, 90’
Festivals: Ji.hlava, Doc NYC
In 1970, in the middle of the Cold War, an American patrol boat meets a Soviet fishing vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Suddenly, a Lithuanian sailor jumps across ten feet of icy water, landing on the deck of the American boat in a frantic bid for political asylum. To his horror, the Americans return him to the Soviets. Told through incredible archival footage and re-lived by the would-be defector Simas Kudirka himself, the tale takes us on a stranger-than-fiction journey of imprisonment, twists of fate, and the price of becoming a symbol of freedom.
Saturday, Sept. 4, 18:30, Cinema Arta - Small Theatre