The film had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival 2023, where it received the Silver Leopard – Special Jury Prize, a commendation from the Ecumenic Jury and the 1st Prize from the Youth Jury.

“Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (the title quotes an aphorism by Stanislaw Jerzy Lec) is a fragmentary film (part comedy, part road-film) about work, exploitation, death and the new gig economy. At the same time, it is dealing with the difficult problem of image production. All these are at the surface level, as they say, but the film only has this one level; it is a film of surfaces,” Radu Jude said in a statement upon the completion of the film.

The cast is led by Ilinca Manolache, Ovidiu Pîrșan and Nina Hoss, and it also includes Dorina Lazăr, Katia Pascariu and Sofia Nicolaescu.

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is produced by Adrian Sitaru through the Romanian company 4Proof Film and Ada Solomon through her Romanian outlet microFILM in coproduction with Adrien Chef and Paul Thiltges through Paul Thiltges Distributions (Luxembourg), Serge Lalou and Claire Dornoy through Les Films d’Ici (France), Ankica Jurić Tilić from the Croatian company Kinorama, and in association with Bord Cadre Films (Switzerland) and Sovereign Films (UK).

The Romanian Film Centre (CNC), the Film Fund Luxembourg, Eurimages, Arte Cofinova/19 and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC) supported the film. Cineplexx România, EssenceMediacom and the Romanian Public Television also helped the project.

Domestic Film will release the film in the Romanian on 27 October 2023. Athens-based Heretic Outreach is handling the sales. The film has recently been acquired by MUBI.