The Defection of Simas Kudirka

The Defection of Simas Kudirka is a 1978 television movie based on actual events, featuring Alan Arkin as Simas Kudirka, a Lithuanian merchant seaman in Sovietera 1970 who attempts to defect to the United States by jumping onto a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. Among the movies awards are two Emmys and another three Emmy nominations. The movie was directed by David Lowell Rich.

The movie was filmed in Portsmouth, NH, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and off the coast of New Hampshire and southern Maine. The final scene shows Simas Kudirka Arkin and his wife Genna Shirley Knight reviewing the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Vigilant, the ship onto which Kudirka jumped. The actual ship shown in the movie was the USCGC Decisive at its home port of New Castle, NH The TS State of Maine, the training ship of Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine was used as the Russian fish factory ship. Many students at MMA were extras as Russian crewmen.In 1979, the movie won an Eddie from the American Cinema Editors, USA, for Best Edited Television Special, awarded to John A. Martinelli. ........

Source: Wikipedia