
It is scripted but is
inspired by a number of interviews with actual prisoners made during the
events.
It won a Cannes
Film Festival Award in 1975 and four Canadian Film Awards the same
year. It was also selected as the Canadian entry for the Best Foreign
Language Film at the 48th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a
nominee. The film was selected to be screened in the Cannes Classics section of
the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
The Toronto
International Film Festival ranked it in the Top 10 Canadian Films of
All Time four times, in 1984, 1993, 2004 and 2015.