The film was entered into the Cannes Film Festival and screened on 17 May 1992, where it received a standing ovation. At Cannes, Lauzon supposedly told juror Jamie Lee Curtis he wanted to have sex with her, which "Los Angeles Times" writer Kenneth Turan believed compromised the film's prospects of winning the Palme d'Or. It was screened at the 1992 Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival in September 1992, distributed by Fine Line Features. The film opened in Quebec in June, and in the U.S. in February 1993. It had a release in 70 countries in total.