Director Atom Egoyan said about filming the orgy scene: "I'm convinced that the best way to shoot a sex scene and make it seem real is to use a master shot, an uninterrupted sequence with no cuts. I wanted to see the bodies. The overwhelming challenge was how to show two (and in this case even more) people having sex without depicting the act of thrusting. By its very nature, sex needs thrusting. More specifically, one part of the body must be in some form of friction with another. This isn't a very romantic way of thinking about it, but then again the MPAA isn't a very romantic organization. Their job is to count thrusts, and then decide, depending on the number, who should see the film. Nice work if you can get it."
An important plot twist, part of the reason the film was given an NC-17 rating in the U.S., is revealed in the documentary Este Filme Ainda Não Foi Classificado (2006).
Feeling the movie had limited commercial value, the North American distributor barely marketed the movie when releases to the public. This is the major cause of the movie being a huge commercial disaster, set to gross less than 20% of its budget after its worldwide release.
Director Atom Egoyan made cuts to the film, including an orgy scene, in a failed attempt to challenge the NC-17 rating given by the MPAA. ThinkFilm has since announced that the version shown in U.S. theaters, is the same as the one shown at the Cannes Film Festival.
The title can be interpreted as "where the truth is", or "where the truth deceives".