Trivia for
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) More at IMDbPro »

• The house that Sabina is living in at the end when she's in America really belongs to film editor Walter Murch.
  
  
• In 1989, the film was shown in Russia for the first time. Screenings were low-key, and held at midnight. Still, more than three thousand people attended each showing, with another thousand being turned away at the door. Many of the people had seen the Czech invasion footage before from the Soviet point of view - reedited to show the Soviet invaders as the heroes and the Czechs as the rebels. For many Russians, this was the first time they'd seen the point of view from the other side.
  
  
• Lena Olin's American film debut.
  
  
• Fittingly, Tomas is seen reading a book called "The Adventures of Casanova in Switzerland."
  
  
• The scene depicting the euthanizing of Karenin the dog was the scene Juliette Binoche read at her audition for Philip Kaufman. She reduced him to tears and she got the role.
  
  
• According to Lena Olin, she met co-star Daniel Day-Lewis on her first day on the set and according to schedule had to do one of the film's most intense nude love scenes with him that very day.
  
  
• Several Czechs were in consideration to be involved in this film, including director Milos Forman, but very few ultimately ended up working on the film. Allegedly, protecting relatives still in Czechoslovakia from reprisals from the Communist regime was a primary reason.
  
  

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