This was the first, and so far the only, sequel to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also the first Polish film to win this prize - the second was Roman Polanski's El pianista (2002) in 2002.
The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. However, because of the martial law in Poland, the communist authorities decided to withdraw it from competing for the award as they didn't want it to represent Poland. The winner in the category was eventually the Hungarian film Mefisto (1981), which previously lost the Palme d'Or at Cannes to Wajda's movie.
The screenplay was written in only six days.
Lech Walesa has an acting role in the movie as the wedding guest of Agnieszka and Maciej, making him the only Nobel Prize winner to have an acting part in a film that won the Golden Palm.