Annika Wedderkopp was never told during filming what exactly Lucas was accused of. She was only told her character lied about him committing a crime.
Director Thomas Vinterberg was approached in 1999 by child psychologist Søren Friis Smith, congratulating him for The Celebration (1998) and giving him a pile of newspaper articles, scientific reports and personal notes about cases where people had been wrongfully accused of pedophilia, telling him he had to make a film about the subject.
Premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, as the first Danish-language film in the main competition since 1998.
Thomas Bo Larsen, struggling with alcoholism at the time of filming, would constantly drop his fake beard due to enormous amounts of alcohol in his blood.
Denmark's official submission to the Foreign Language Film category of the 2014 Academy Awards.