Mike and Stefani (50th anniversary reissue)

ScreenSound Australia’s 50th anniversary reissue on video of this classic film about post-war refugees, also includes complete segments from the film magazine series ‘Australian Diary’. ‘Mike and Stefani’ chronicles the wartime separation of a young Ukrainian couple, their chance re-union in a refugee camp and their subsequent application to emigrate to Australia. The final scene of the film was structured around an actual interview which was filmed in Germany between a Ukrainian couple and an Australian immigration official. The details of the experiences of the couple, beginning with the pre-war period, were then re-constructed in an episodic, open-ended way characteristic of neo-realist films like ‘Bicycle Thieves’. The film aimed to encourage Anglo-Australians to accept the sudden influx of non-British immigrants in the immediate post-war years. Extensive support materials are available on the ScreenSound Australia website including biographies, primary source documents, textual description and analysis.