After the murder of Theo van Gogh, "Submission" gained international fame. It was withdrawn from the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The movie had been scheduled to be shown on Sunday during a discussion on freedom of speech in movie at the festival. Because of the violent murder of Van Gogh, the producer of "Submission", Gijs van de Westelaken, said, "We do not want to take any chance of endangering anyone else who participated in the movie." The movie was shown on television in a number of European countries.