Documentary
In the Cold War years of the 1970s, an American patrol boat meets a Soviet ship off the east coast of the United States for talks about fishing rights in the Atlantic. In the midst of this, while Russian commanders are aboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel where the talks are being held, a Lithuanian sailor jumps across the ten feet of icy water separating the boats. Crash-landing on the deck of the American ship, he desperately begs for asylum. Though they try, the Americans ultimately fail to provide protection and the Soviets are allowed to capture him and brutally return him to their vessel. Thus begins a stranger-than-fiction story of imprisonment, discovery, fame, and freedom. Through rare archival footage and a dramatic first-person re-enactment of that fateful day by Simas Kudirka, the would-be defector himself, this tale of one of the biggest Cold War muddles takes us on a journey of uncanny twists of fate, and the emotional sacrifices of becoming a universal symbol of freedom.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
The Real Losers Of The US-China Trade War
Ronald Reagan: The Hollywood Years, the Presidential Years
Last to Know
Alert Today - Alive Tomorrow
1989
1979: Big Bang of the Present
The Hole In The Ground
Camp Century: The Hidden City Beneath the Ice
The Arrow of Time
Berlin Geheimoperation Tunnel
Mission to Mir
Land of White Alice
Tunnel to Freedom
The Crazy Che
The Hot Potato: The Road to Transformation
The Polygon
The Last Spy
Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1
Espions pour la planète
The Atomic Cafe
SIMILAR MOVIES
The Real Losers Of The US-China Trade War
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2021
A 3 year trade war has created corporate casualties in both US and China. In China, a dual circulation model is now underway to mitigate the effects of US protectionism. In the US, a Biden administration mulls new economic measures against China, even as industry groups lobby for tariffs to be lifted. Both countries also brace for what used to be unthinkable- the possibility of a financial war.Ronald Reagan: The Hollywood Years, the Presidential Years
IMDB 0 | Aug , 2001
These 2 one-hour specials will take a look back at Ronald Reagan from his ups and downs as a Hollywood movie star to a legendary force in American politics. HOLLYWOOD YEARS: will take a look at the actor as he goes from local sports broadcaster to respected leading an using film clips, interviews and rare footage. This one a kind documentary traces the ups and downs of his on-screen career, his marriages to Hane Wyman and Nancy Davis and his role as a "friendly witness" during the McCarthy hearings. PRESIDENTIAL YEARS: documents Ronald Reagan's extraordinary transformation from a Hollywood movie star to a legendary force in American politics. From political spokesman to Governor of California, Reagan's rapid rise in leadership carried him all the way to the White House where he would inscribe an indelible legacy into the pages of world history.Last to Know
IMDB 8 | Feb , 2006
In the documentary Last To Know political prisoners, sent to jail for openly opposing the East German regime that existed until the German reunification in 1990, talk about their times of trial and their lives today. Neither they, nor their families have come to terms with what happened.Alert Today - Alive Tomorrow
IMDB 5 | Nov , 1956
This short shows how the city of Reading, Pennsylvania would implement civil defense procedures to help residents survive a nuclear attack. Through a network of volunteers, makeshift hospitals would be set up, auxiliary police officers would maintain order, and other elements of the civil defense program would be put in place.1989
IMDB 7.1 | Nov , 2014
Anders Østergaard’s film is an investigative look at the year the Berlin Wall fell, documenting the events that took place in Hungary as a prelude to the dramatic changes in November 1989. The director recreates the events and leads the audiences deep into the politicians’ secret meeting rooms by using a mix of interviews, archive material and reconstructed scenes and dialogues.1979: Big Bang of the Present
IMDB 5.7 | Dec , 2019
Deng Xiaoping's economic and political opening in China. Margaret Thatcher's extreme economic measures in the United Kingdom. Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran. Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland. Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The nuclear accident at the Harrisburg power plant and the birth of ecological activism. The year 1979, the beginning of the future.The Hole In The Ground
IMDB 0 | Jul , 1962
Made at the height of 'cold war' paranoia, this drama-documentary shows the work of the UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation, who's duties included the issuing of public warnings of any nuclear missile strike and the subsequent fallout.Camp Century: The Hidden City Beneath the Ice
IMDB 7 | Jan , 2020
How in 1959, during the heat of the Cold War, the government of the United States decided to create a secret military base located in the far north of Greenland: Camp Century, almost a real town with roads and houses, a nuclear plant to provide power and silos to house missiles aimed at the Soviet Union.The Arrow of Time
IMDB 0 | Oct , 2017
President Mikhail Gorbachev recounts the end of the Cold War and the reduction of nuclear arms.Berlin Geheimoperation Tunnel
IMDB 8 | Jan , 2011
Mission to Mir
IMDB 6.5 | Oct , 1997
This film shows how far we have come since the cold-war days of the 50s and 60s. Back then the Russians were our "enemies". And to them the Americans were their "enemies" who couldn't be trusted. Somewhere in all this a young girl in Oklahoma named Shannon set her sights on becoming one of those space explorers, even though she was told "girls can't do that." But she did.Land of White Alice
IMDB 0 | Jan , 1960
Film sponsored by Western Electric (AT&T's equipment manufacturing division), the builder of the United States Air Force's White Alice Communications System in Alaska. Introduces the people and geography of the new state as well as the Western Electric radio-relay system, which links far-flung military sites, alert stations, and missile-warning facilities. Ralph Caplan praised the film's "intrinsically dramatic and highly photogenic" portrayal of communications equipment.Tunnel to Freedom
IMDB 7.2 | Jul , 2021
13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.The Crazy Che
IMDB 6.8 | Nov , 2015
The incredible story of Bill Gaede, an Argentinian engineer, programmer… and Cold War spy.The Hot Potato: The Road to Transformation
IMDB 0 | Oct , 2013
To cool the heat on the asylum debate - the biggest 'hot potato' in Australian politics, we took a hot potato food van around the country in the lead up to the 2013 Federal Election. The mission? To see what Australia really thinks asylum seekers. This is an account of this journey.The Polygon
IMDB 6.5 | Nov , 2014
The Polygon shines a light on the village of Sarzhal in East Kazakhstan, situated only 18kms from the perimeter of the former Semipalatinsk Test Site, that was home to over 600 nuclear detonations. Between 1949 and 1991 the Soviet Union detonated 116 above ground bombs, whose massive radioactive mushroom clouds were witnessed by thousands of innocent and unsuspecting Kazakh villagers. They gazed openmouthed at the spectacle, completely unaware that nuclear fallout was raining down on them, their children, livestock and homes. 20 years after the closure of The Polygon they are still suffering high rates of cancer, cancer related diseases and mental illness. The Polygon takes us on a journey from the twisted Cold War experiments to those victims who remain today, still suffering despite the emergence of Kazakhstan as a major economic player on the global stage.The Last Spy
IMDB 8 | Jun , 2025
The riveting biography of 102-year-old CIA spymaster Peter Sichel, who unpacks the obscured roots of conflicts that plague today’s world and the toll espionage took on his personal life.Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1
IMDB 6.4 | Nov , 2011
A shocking political exposé, and an intimate ethnographic portrait of Pacific Islanders struggling for survival, dignity, and justice after decades of top-secret human radiation experiments conducted on them by the U.S. government.Espions pour la planète
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2016
In the aftermath of the Cold War, Russian and American intelligence agencies, once enemies, joined forces and pooled their data to serve the planet, threatened by global warming. The story of a remarkable odyssey.The Atomic Cafe
IMDB 7.3 | Mar , 1982
A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.