Due to the delay in sending the film to Europe, Gimba was left out of the Cannes Film Festival.
Gimba is a play by actor and playwright Gianfrancesco Guarnieri. It premiered in São Paulo in 1959 with Sebastião Campos as Gimba and Maria Della Costa as Guiô. In the movie these characters are played by Milton Moraes and Gracinda Freire.
Gimba was Flávio Rangel's first and only attempt as a film director. He was already an acclaimed and respected theater director at the time, and so remained until his death in 1988.