Cinema Novo (), "New Cinema" in English, is a genre and movement of film noted for its emphasis on social equality and intellectualism that rose to prominence in Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s. Cinema Novo formed in response to class and racial unrest both in Brazil and the United States. Influenced by Italian neorealism and French New Wave, films produced under the ideology of Cinema Novo opposed traditional Brazilian cinema, which consisted primarily of musicals, comedies and Hollywood-style epics. Glauber Rocha is widely regarded as Cinema Novo's most influential filmmaker. Today, the movement is often divided into three sequential phases that differ in tone, style and content. Origins Background In the 1950s, Brazilian cinema was dominated by chanchada (musicals, often comedic and "cheap"), big-budget epics that imitated the style of Hollywood, and "'serious' cinema" that Cinema Novo filmmaker Carlos Diegues characterizes as "sometimes cerebral and often ridiculously pretentious." This traditional cinema was supported by foreign producers, distributors and exhibitors. As the decade ended, young Brazilian filmmakers protested films they perceived as made in "bad taste and ... sordid commercialism, ... a form of cultural prostitution" that relied on the patronage of "an illiterate and impoverished Brazil." Cinema Novo became increasingly political. In the 1960s, Brazil was producing the most political cinema in South America. Brazil therefore became the natural “home of the Cinema Novo (New Cinema) movement”. Cinema Novo rose to prominence at the same time that progressive Brazilian Presidents Juscelino Kubitschek and later João Goulart took office and began to influence Brazilian popular culture. But it was not until 1959 or 1960 that 'Cinema Novo' emerged as a label for the movement. According to Randal Johnson and Robert Stam, Cinema Novo officially began in 1960, with the start of its first phase. In 1961, the Popular Center of Culture, a subsidiary of the National Students' Union, released Cinco Vezes Favela, a film serialized in five episodes that Johnson and Stam claim to be "one of the first" products of the Cinema Novo movement. The Popular Center of Culture (PCC) sought "to establish a cultural and political link with the Brazilian masses by putting on plays in factories and working-class neighborhoods, producing films and records, and by participating in literacy programs." Johnson and Stam hold that "many of the original members of Cinema Novo" were also active members in the PCC who participated in the production of Cinco Vezes