Improper Conduct (1984)

• 79%
• 1984
• Documentary
• History
• Néstor Almendros
• Orlando Jiménez Leal
• Michel Dumoulin
• Guillermo Cabrera Infante
• Juan Goytisolo

An examination of Cuba's "moral purges" that began in 1964 with UMAP camps for those suspected of or found guilty of "improper conduct." Key moments brought outside attention to these policies: the defection of ballet dancers in Paris in 1966, a 48-hour period in 1980 when more than 11,000 Cubans sought asylum in Havana's Peruvian embassy, and the brief detention of writer Virgilio Piñera. Interviews with exiles take up most of the film as they tell their stories and ponder the Castro government's arrest and detention of persons with effeminate mannerisms: what the state calls "extravagant behavior." In essence, the film exposes the Cuban state's homophobic, petit bourgeois nature.