The French government refused to help financing the movie because of its pacifist anti-war message, since France was at the time heavily involved in the bloody Algerian War of independence. The budget was finally secured when the Yugoslavian government agreed to pitch in. The movie premiered at the 1961 Venice Film Festival as a Yugoslavian entry, since the French government still wanted nothing to do with it and eventually banned the release of the film in France until 1963, a year after the Algerian War had ended. The French press gave the movie mostly poor reviews.
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