At the beginning of the film, the students buy cigarettes, soap, and birth control pills on the black market. In 1967, in an effort to increase the dwindling population, the Romanian government issued Decree 770, which banned contraceptives as well as abortion.
The "15th Best Movie of the 21st Century" according to a poll by BBC Culture of 177 film critics from 36 countries aimed to find 21st century's top films. Each critic was allowed to submit 10 films, all produced between 2000 and 2016, which resulted in a total of 599 films, which were sorted into the top 100. The resulting top 100 list had 4 Monate, 3 Wochen und 2 Tage (2007) at No 15.
The 2008 Oscar winner in the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category at the 80th Academy Awards was Austria's Die Fälscher (2007), an entry much criticized as conventional and artistically inferior to Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or winner. The surprising snub of 4 Monate, 3 Wochen und 2 Tage (2007), which wasn't even nominated, resulted in intense scrutiny and ridicule of the Academy Awards by the international film community and eventually inspired reforms to the 'Best Foreign Language Film' selection process.
Based on real events an old acquaintance told the director.