Marco Bellocchio had already directed a documentary about the Red Brigades and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro: Sogni infranti (1995).
The song that the former partisans sing is, instead, "Fischia il vento", which is an Italian popular song whose text was written in September 1943, at the inception of the Resistenza (an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the Nazis and the Italian Fascists during the Second World War (1939-1945)).
Was appreciated by the relatives of Aldo Moro.
Aldo Moro was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war prime ministers, leading the country for more than six years. An intellectual and a patient mediator, especially in the internal life of his own party, during his rule, Moro implemented a series of social and economic reforms which deeply modernized the country. Due to his accommodation with the Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer, known as the Historic Compromise, Moro is widely considered one of the most prominent fathers of the modern Italian centre-left and one of the greatest and most popular leaders in the history of the Italian Republic.
Although the film was seen as a favorite to win the Golden Lion at the 60th Venice International Film Festival, its only significant award was for the screenplay, arousing much controversy among experts; the director Marco Bellocchio, disappointed, abandoned the event, delegating to the actor Luigi Lo Cascio the task of collecting the prize. Following the statements of the jury president Mario Monicelli, which corroborated the motivations that had not convinced the jurors to assign the maximum recognition to the film ("it was impossible to convince foreigners ... this film was not up to its precedent, My Mother's Smile"), Rai Cinema announced in protest that it no longer wanted to participate in the Show: a declaration right after following a meeting between the then president of the Venice Biennale, Franco Bernabè, and the CEO of Rai Cinema Giancarlo Leone.