Third World Cinema was a movement in the 1960s and 1970s that focused on films made in “Third World” countries—mainly those in Africa and Latin America. Its purpose was to create films that were produced and directed by people from Third World countries and to train actors of color to find roles in film and television. The films were also intended to send a message to the rest of the world that no matter how they viewed people of the Third World, it was incorrect and created by those who had oppressed people of the Third World through colonialism for so long. Kim Dodge of the website, Third Cinema, says that in the 1960s and 1970s, “Third Cinema was a militant practice parallel with revolutionary struggles of this period, produced with the intention of provoking discussion with and amongst its viewers and proposing alternative visions of the past, present, and future” (Dodge). The 1960s was a time of protest and many marginalized groups marched, rallied and protested the way the had been left out of the conversation that favored First World politics, ideas and even art.

Third World Cinema wanted to bring realism to the screen including the realism about Third World countries that was not shown in First World movies and art about the Third World. The movies made by Third World Cinema showed the world through the perspective of people who lived in Third World countries, those that were not in the Western industrialized world and those that were not part of the communist bloc. For many Westerners, this was an entirely new concept. It was also seen as revolutionary and politically radical because it pointed out the oppression and poverty that was present in countries that had been colonized by First World countries. People in First World countries did not like having their faults pointed out to them and they did not like to see the condition that the Third World countries were in because the films placed the blame on First World countries for the problems.

Third World Cinema then developed into Third cinema because, by the time that evolution was complete, there was a body of work created by cinematic professionals from the third world. First cinema is Hollywood, and Second Cinema is European filmmakers. Third Cinema is a political project that is also artistic in nature. Filmmakers in Africa, Asia and Latin America were taught and guided by the principles of Third Cinema, which came out of Third World Cinema. The term “Third World” is offensive though because it implies that those who live in the countries represented by the “Third World” are not as good or worthy as those who live in the countries considered the “First World.” Third cinema does not carry the same meanings that Third World has. The purposes may still be the same, but the name and the respect given to the filmmakers and other cinematic professionals of Third Cinema has increased. Today, Third Cinema is a respected group of filmmakers. Dodge says, “The tone of a Third Cinema film can reflect a revolutionary atmosphere and deliver its message with confidence, convey the disillusionment of failed or coopted revolutions, or express frustration with class, racial, or gender oppression continued colonial impulses from First World nations” (Dodge). Now, with Third Cinema, the forcefulness of Third World Cinema has given way to different battles and new issues have come about that the people of Third Cinema now focus on such as nation building, new types of cultural oppression, and expressions of disappointment.

Even though Third Cinema came out of Third World Cinema and are still quite similar, there are also some differences in them. Third World Cinema was socialist politically and was influenced by European artists who wanted to disrupt the normal idea that most people had of cinema. Third World filmmakers did not see any difference between art and life, and they wanted this reflected in their filmmaking. They wanted this idea along with their minority political ideas to be represented in a more artistic way rather than being distorted by propaganda. To do this, they mixed genres and filmmaking techniques and used visual cues to make political and cultural statements about the world.

These ideas still are at play with Third Cinema, but the difference is now that the Third World Cinema has been successful, Third Cinema now confronts First and Second Cinema with the reality of living in a Third World Country and suffering the consequences of years of colonialism. Nasrullah Mambrol of Literariness says that Third Cinema is a response to Western filmmaking that features colonialist ideas about what cinema should be like and how people of Third World countries should act. Mambrol says that there is an “unbalanced representation of race, class and gender predominantly in stereotypical images of non-Western peopl