The movie is dedicated to Levan Abashidze, a well-known Georgian actor who was killed in the Abkhazian war.
The first Estonian feature film to be nominated for an Academy Award.
The script was written within two weeks.
An independent Kingdom of Abkhazia (778-1008) existed during the Middle Ages, formed by the secession of a province of the Byzantine Empire in the Caucasus. It was eventually united with the medieval Kingdom of Georgia (1008-1490), and was later subservient (with varying degrees of autonomy) to the Kingdom of Imereti (1490-1570s), the Ottoman Empire (1570s-1810), the Russian Empire (1810-1917), the first modern Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) and the Soviet Union (1921-1991). The Abhkazians maintained their own language and don't consider themselves Georgians. The war depicted in the film was part of the ethnic tensions in modern Georgia.