Ilmar Raag had a broken leg during filming. He broke it while on a morning run in Minsk, Belarus, where the filmmakers were choosing filming locations.
According to producer Natalya Drozd, it took the filmmakers very long to look for a director until they found Ilmar Raag. The latter previously claimed he would only make films based on his own scripts, but liked the script by Yaroslava Pulinovich, especially the finale, so much that he changed his mind.