After seeing this film Nelson Mandela called it, "a beautiful and important film about South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It will engage and influence not only South Africans, but people all over the world concerned with the great questions of human reconciliation, forgiveness, and tolerance."
The term "make a plan" used by Sergeant Dreyer (Greg Latter) is a common one among South Africans. It usually has a positive meaning of being willing and capable of finding a way to resolve something, but here it is used as a euphemism for killing someone.
John Boorman and Brendan Gleeson previously collaborated in The Tailor of Panama (2001) and The General (1998).
The scenes at the Malan family farm (which was in actually in Transvaal in the northern part of the country) were shot in the farmlands an hour to the north of Cape Town.
The exterior scenes and shots of the TRC hearings (for instance where Anna and Dumi first meet) were shot on the forecourt of the South African Museum in the Company Gardens in Cape Town's city center. At least some of the internal scenes were shot in the Centre for the Book, which is down the road from the Museum and has curving corridors. The exterior of the court scene was shot outside the Centre for the Book.