This unusual Swiss movie was the surprise winner of the 1985 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. The story is set in Geneva in 1983 during the World Chess Championship. The two players are Akiva Liebskind (Michel Piccoli), a 52-year-old Soviet master who comes to the competition with an inflated ego and an ailing heart, and Pavius Fromm (Alexander Arbatt), an unpredictable 35-year-old Soviet dissident who fled to the West five years ago and cannot wait to make Russia look bad.