Maile Meloy didn't know about Kelly Reichardt's intention to flip the gender of the Rancher until she saw a screening. She commented she loved how it changed the story.
Adaptation of three Maile Meloy short stories, "Travis B," "Native Sandstone" and "Tome." The stories are part of her "Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It" and "Half in Love" collections.
The film is dedicated to Lucy, Reichardt's dog and star of two of her previous films: Old Joy (2006) and Wendy and Lucy (2008).
Reichardt revealed that one of the reasons she chose to shoot on film was because snow appears "flat" in other formats. Interestingly enough, when she began shooting, there was little to no snow at all in Montana.
Kristen Stewart's usual approach to learning her lines is to quickly memorize them and then alter some wording to add idiosyncrasies to her characters. During the shooting of this film, she was told by the director that she would have to say her lines word for word, stating in an interview that "words are very important to her (Kelly Reichardt)."