Trivia

The film unfolds in real time.

Jafar Panahi has stated that during the making of his feature debut he "wanted to prove to myself that I can do the job, that I can finish a feature film successfully and get good acting out of my players." He also stated that "In a world where films are made with millions of dollars, we made a film about a little girl who wants to buy a fish for less than a dollar - this is what we're trying to show."

It was Iran's official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 68th Academy Awards; however, the Iranian government asked the Academy to withdraw the film after Iran's relations with the US began to deteriorate. The Academy refused to withdraw the film, which was not nominated, and Jafar Panahi was forbidden by the Iranian government to travel to the Sundance Film Festival or to participate in phone interviews with US reporters to promote the film.

Jafar Panahi found lead actress Aida Mohammadkhani at the first school that he visited and immediately cast her as Razieh, but auditioned 2,600 young boys for the role of Razieh's brother Ali before settling on Mohsen Kafili. He cast non-professionals in most of the supporting roles, including a real fish seller he found in the Rasht market and a college student to portray the young soldier.

In Iran, films depicting children are the most likely to avoid censorship or political controversy, and The White Balloon was screened exclusively in theaters that specialized in children's films. Because of this the film had low attendance on its initial run in Iranian theaters, with only 130,000 tickets sold.