Cast and crew consisted of amateurs. As most of them had daytime jobs, the film was mostly shot over weekends. Ronnie Montagne, who had studied pedagogy, played Mariken. The one-eyed Moenen was played by Sander Bais, a young physicist. After shooting this film they both went to the United States to complete their doctorate degrees at Stanford University, California, and never acted again.
About 800 extras were used, many of them inhabitants from Utrecht and Buren. They represented a collection of oddities: toothless, deformed, crippled or otherwise out of the ordinary in some ways. In adverts for auditions, all sorts of supporting actors were asked to attend, "especially people who are not beautiful, but old, young, fat, thin, long and short."
Italian censorship visa # 71413 delivered on 18 January 1978.
In March 1975 this movie became the first Dutch film to be selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival.