The short ballet film "Meeting with a Stranger" that Mario Vanni watches at the cinema in Italy was shot as a separate short initiated by producer Lorens Marmstedt and directed by Hasse Ekman. Marmstedt liked it so much that he commissioned Ekman to write a story for an international song and dance film, that would include the short and another two ballets, one of which being "The Firebird" by Igor Stravinsky.