Diegues would use extras, film technicians, painters, sculptors, and other essential personnel of Brazilian backgrounds even if they were inexperienced.

As a left leaning student, he pursued filmmaking as he applied his deep understanding of social criticism in his works.

His film sparked mixed emotions, but most importantly, it gave the working masses hope for change.

In the 60s the films associated with Cinema Novo explicitly talked about the unfair treatment of people under the status quo.

[7] As the dictatorship reached full force in the late 1960s the CPC could no longer operate as regularly for the members.

In his earliest works Diegues created Joana Francesa by 1975, when the dictatorship repressed and censored most of the media and entertainment industries.

This film alluded to the ideas of inequality and injustice but it also garnered criticism by the left as they suggested it was not as intricate or heavily influenced by the social commentary Diegues had used before.