In Yugoslavia's Livada prison in 1970, inmates led by Keber convince reluctant authorities to let them watch the televised Olympic final basketball game between the home country and the U.S., but taunting guards interrupt the viewing and prod the prisoners to the point of a riot. After a period of a kind of blissful anarchy where the inmates taste freedom, Keber enlists the house "intellectual" Mrak to devise a system of prisoner self-government aimed at forcing reforms on the state.
