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Designed by a shameless official as an anti-capitalist propaganda crusade, a three-day marathon race is sabotaged by a dissident who steals the running shoe of the hand-picked favorite. Budny and Stolar are two particular contestants who are highlighted here. Budny is a man with a hidden agenda; his father is held prisoner by the militia and Budny wishes to run the race in order to get close enough to the president -- who will present the awards to the winners -- to make a plea for his father's release. Conversely, Stolar is a self-serving loser who finagles his entry into the race and then turns his lecherous attention to a young woman working for the Party. A vicious indictment of Polish Communist Party officials of the Stalinist era, this symbolic film remained on the shelf for six years before being officially released to appear at the Sydney Film Festival in 1987.