Short answers, pulled from the story.
Shooting began in 1949 when the original Italian producer announced bankruptcy on one of the first days. Orson Welles poured his own money into the project to keep filming alive and ran out of funds multiple times.
The movie opens with Othello and Desdemona's funeral before any other action occurs. This opening funeral scene does not exist in Shakespeare's original play text.
An Italian-language version premiered in Rome on the 29th of November 1951. The European cut features different edits of many scenes from other versions using alternative camera angles.
Beatrice Welles-Smith supervised a restoration spending over one million dollars on picture quality improvements. She resynchronized audio added extra sound effects and completely rerecorded music in stereo.
Othello won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. Welles could not find a distributor in the United States for over three years after this victory.