The actors playing Joy Division learned how to play the songs themselves. So the scenes where the band is playing live is not from tape, but actually the actors playing live.
The black-and-white film was actually shot in color, then transferred to black and white because, according to the director, the black and white film "was so grainy it looked like Super-8 even in 35 millimeter."
Sam Riley (who plays Ian Curtis) and Alexandra Maria Lara (who played his lover Annik Honore) married in August 2008 and now live in Berlin
After the exhausting filming of Das Boot (1981) German pop star Herbert Grönemeyer swore he'd never act in a movie again. He made an exception for his good friend Anton Corbijn and appeared in this movie, though.