The cottage burnt down while the film jammed in the camera, and the crew could not reload it in time. Therefore, it had to be reconstructed and burnt a second time.
The opening, post-credits shot (a tracking shot of Alexander, Little Man, and Otto talking and walking) lasts nine minutes and twenty-six seconds, the longest single take in all of Tarkovsky's work.
There are only 115 shots in the entire film.
The part where Alexander tells Little Man about when they found their house is actually the story of how Andrei Tarkovsky and his wife, Larisa Tarkovskaya, found their house in the U.S.S.R.
Tarkovsky was ailing from lung cancer when he made this film, and his health steadily declined after shooting wrapped. He was shown the final cut of "The Sacrifice" on his deathbed in a Paris hospital.
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