The place where the resistance organizes itself near Rio Salado in the movie was filmed in Zaghouan/ Tunisia
Early in its development, the film was meant to have a theatrical cut and a longer version for television consisting of three feature-length parts, in a manner similar to Carlos (2010), Das Boot (1981) and other projects. This plan was eventually abandoned.
While Alexandre Arcady initially hoped to film in Algeria, the circumstances at the time of shooting, right in the middle of the Arab Spring, made this impossible, so the bulk of filming, nine weeks, was done in Tunisia. After a week of shooting in France, the crew did manage to secure a week of filming in Algeria right at the end of production.
The assembly cut was four and a half hours long.