While the film is based on the retelling of one of the most famous Biblical stories of all time, a large part of the backdrop of the story is based on the true history of how director Dalton Thomas' family came to Florida from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. The names and locations used in the screenplay were taken from family archives during the 16th and 17th century.
The first feature film on the conquest of pre-colonial Florida.
A considerable part of the film focuses on the tribal conflict between the Timucua Indians of Florida in 1565 on the eve of the French and Spanish War for control of the peninsula which began that September. Since the Timucua were completely wiped out over the next century, indigenous tribes from Panama were cast to play the Timucua. As only fragments of the Timucua language were documented by linguists before their eventual destruction, four different indigenous languages are spoken in the film to honor the heritage and culture of each tribe. The script was written in English and translated into Spanish and then translated again into the various indigenous languages.