Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Il Contratto (1953)

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clip New beginnings

Original classification rating: not rated. This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

Shot documentary-style, this early sequence shows the film’s four young Italian male migrants (Giuseppe Michelini, Luigi Borsi, Giuseppe Cusato, Giorgio Mangiamele) on deck and disembarking from their migrant ship in Melbourne.

Curator’s notes

The scene essentially re-enacts the arrival experience in November 1952 of Giorgio Mangiamele (who plays one of the four protagonists) and many of the other 170,000 Italians who migrated to Australia between 1951 and 1960.