No other mainstream movie featured Mondo Cane's harsh and cynical approach to sex, death, illness or weirdness. Mondo Cane is a mixed bag of unusual and shocking visions and act-outs, at least as unusual and shocking as it could be for the average moviegoer from the 60s. What we call 'Mondo Cinema' was born in 1962, when the Italian documentary Mondo Cane (by Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti & Franco Prosperi) was released. The term shockumentary is also used to describe the genre. Over time, the films placed increasing emphasis on footage of the dead and dying (both real and fake). Common traits of mondo films include an emphasis on taboo subjects (such as death and sex), portrayals of foreign cultures (which have drawn accusations of ethnocentrism or racism), and staged sequences presented as genuine documentary footage. A Mondo film (from the Italian word for 'world') is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary and usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, or situations.
