Trivia

In a 2016 interview with Manuela Papatakis (director's daughter), leading actress Olga Karlatos, revealed that originally there was no screaming involved in the the scene in which Roland Bertin, playing Raftal, push a cigarette on Karlatos's left breast. "The lit cigarette was really crashing against my skin - so the pain was real. Nico (Papatakis) asked me to control my pain, to try not to show it, to internalize it, as if I hardly felt anything. And I did indeed manage to handle the pain at the time of the take, but then Nico thought my expression was too bland and eliminated that take," Karlatos said.

Director Nikos Papatakis said he wanted to make this film for his then wife, leading actress Olga Karlatos, with whom he was separating. "As a parting gift," he said.

The initial title of the screenplay was 'Act'. 'Gloria Mundi' came much later. Nikos Papatakis was inspired by the Latin phrase "sic transit gloria mundi," a phrase that was used in the ritual of papal coronation ceremonies.

In this film, the main character, Galai, is an actress who tries desperately to find the authentic cry that is uttered under torture. In this search, she goes so far as to subject herself to torture in real life. In these parallel stories, Olga Karlatos, who plays Galai, revealed that most of the torture scenes in the film were not simulated. "Although I didn't go to the same extremes, I did experiment with electrocution to familiarize myself with the feeling," she said, adding that also the cigarette scene was real. "We only got to do it once, with no rehearsals, so I couldn't miss it. But I did. And I still live with the scar. She's about a centimeter. Over time, it has flattened out, but there is still a white spot and a circle. It did not endanger my life but it was a great lesson in interpretation for me," she said.