"The Apple" made its premiere as the opener of the 1980 Montreal World Film Festival, where its attendees received vinyl records of music from the film; the festival's president Serge Losique was recommended by his son to screen the movie. According to Jakubowicz, there were "bad reviews almost everywhere." The movie garnered a largely negative audience at the festival, some watchers throwing the vinyl records at the screen. According to Stewart, Golan was so distraught from this that after the festival, he considered killing himself by jumping off a hotel balcony. As Golan once said, "It's impossible that I'm so wrong about it. I cannot be that wrong about the movie. They just don't understand what I was trying to do."