Monica Bellucci had to learn Sicilian for the role, a dialect that is noticeably different from her native Italian.
Highly censored in countries such as the USA and UK. The uncut Italian version is 108 minutes, while the UK and US version is cut to 92. More than 16% of its running time is cut.
Although Renato is 12 years old in the film, Giuseppe Sulfaro was 15 years old when the film was in production and he is 3 years older than his on-screen character.
The movie is highly censored in countries such as the USA and UK. The uncut italian version os 108 minutes, while the UK and the US version is cut to 92.the director said that he had to edit 3 times before the finally got an R rating for this movie.
After production on the film was completed, Monica Bellucci was cast as Persephone in Matrix Reloaded (2003) and Matrix Revolutions (2003) the sequels to the blockbuster Matrix (1999).