Trivias

• Producer Niv Fichman became interested in the project back in 1999 when he and Don McKellar, who would write the script, flew to the Canary Islands to talk to the Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author José Saramago about giving them the film rights to his book. One of Saramago's conditions was that the film must not be set in any recognizable countries.
• Selected as the opening film at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
• Portuguese Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, the author of the novel upon which the film is based, wanted to attend the premiere of the film at the Cannes Film Festival. His doctors didn't allow him to travel, so the director flew to Lisbon to show him the film.