This celebrated film won multiple awards, having started out as a movie-workshop for a group of students in Havana. With echoes of Ken Loach’s Kes, 11-year-old Chala keeps pigeons and illegally trains fighting dogs in order to support himself and his alcoholic mother. Chala is understood by his teacher Carmela, but when a new less experienced teacher sends him to a school for children with behavioural problems, controversy breaks out. Broader issues are exposed when intolerance and bureaucracy overtake the wellbeing and needs of the child. The movie kindled an intense social debate and the Ministry of Education promoted its discussion in schools. “A restrained portrayal of the tenderness between Chala and Carmela, who care for each other when family members who should cannot.”

Introduced by Silvia Padrón Durán, director of La Manigua film and culture project for children and young people in Havana.

BOOK TICKETS 6.30pm Wednesday 26 March 2025 at the Garden Cinema, Screen 1

Behaviour / Conducta | Ernesto Daranas |2014, Cuba, ICAIC | 108m |18

AWARDS Biznaga de Plata/ Silver Coin Award for Best Direction, Best Film, Best Actress, Audience Award, Malaga Film Festival (2014)

Best Feature, Best Actress, Havana Film Festival New York (2014)

Audience Award, Lima Film Festival (2014)

Best Female Actor, International Film Festival of India (2014)

Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Brasilia International Film Festival (2014)

Junior Film Award, FIPRESCI Award, Schlingel International Film Festival, Chemnitz, Germany (2014)

UNICEF Award for Best Film about Childhood, Bogota Film Festival (2014)

Grand Coral First Prize, Best Male Performance, UNICEF prize and many more, Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Havana (2014)

Cuban entry for Best Foreign Language Film at 87th Academy Awards (2015)

CAST   Armando Valdés Freire, Alina Rodríguez, Silvia Águila, Yuliet Cruz, Armando Miguel Gómez, Amaly Junco 

REVIEWS  ScreenDaily | Howard Feinstein

WATCH TRAILER 

PLUS SHORT

Una Aventura de Elpidio Valdés / Elpidio Valdés Adventure |Juan Padrón | 1974, Cuba, ICAIC | 7m

Juan Padrón is the godfather of animation in Cuba and is revered across Latin America. Elpidio Valdés is a famous and much loved cartoon character in Cuban culture, who entertained generations of Cuban children as a symbol of rebellion against colonialism and imperialism. Elpidio joins the mambí liberation army (formed of former enslaved people and peasants) in 1895 at the beginning of the Cuban War of Independence. The cartoons always make fun of the colonial powers.

This is one of two shorts recently restored by ICAIC with funding from Screen Cuba.