This is one of a handful of mid-late 1970s Australian feature films that were road movies. The pictures include High Rolling (1977), American Happy Day (1977), Oz (1976), Cosy Cool (1977), In Search of Anna (1978) and Backroads (1977).
Indigenous Australian Aboriginal activist Gary Foley agreed to appear in the film if he would be allowed responsibility for the film's Australian indigenous Aboriginal content.
According to the 'Koori Web' website, this was the ''first Australian film where the only people payed award wages were the local indigenous actors and extras, because the entire budget for the film was $25,000'' as well as the ''first film featuring Aboriginal people where Aboriginal people had a significant say in the making of the film...in both the manner in which they were portrayed and also whether they even wanted the film made in their midst. ''
'Rabbit-Proof Fence' (2002) screenwriter Christine Olsen said Phillip Noyce was her dream director because of his short movie Backroads (1977), which she described as "full of exuberance and energy. He treated the Aboriginal people in the film as people, nothing more, nothing less." Olsen also knew that if Noyce were to direct 'Rabbit-Proof Fence' it would get an international audience, and she thought it was a universal story that actually had the potential for it.
The title of the film lends its name to a biography about the movie's director. The book is called ''Phillip Noyce: Backroads to Hollywood'' (2004) by Ingo Petzke.