As the topic of escaping to the West was taboo in the GDR, The Flight is an exception in East German film history. The film won the Grand Prix at the Karoly Vary International Film Festival in 1978; but it was also the last one Armin Mueller-Stahl made at the East German DEFA Film Studios. In 1980, only two years after the release of the film, he left East Germany for the West because of professional restrictions imposed upon him after he joined protests against the expatriation of the dissident singer/songwriter Wolf Biermann.