The film has been rated R for graphic nudity, some sexual content, drug use, and language. The film premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

The film, based upon the book of the same name, follows the true life story of Elliot Tiber (played by Demetri Martin), an aspiring Greenwich Village interior designer whose parents owned a small motel in Upstate New York and, at the time, held the only musical festival permit in the entire town of Bethel, New York. Tiber offered both the Catskills motel and the permit to the Woodstock Festival's organizers.

Filming took place from August 18, 2008 to October 2008 in New Lebanon, NY, located in Columbia County, New York, in Upstate New York.