Writter Roger Monteiro approached director Ulisses Da Motta to direct this script around 2013. But Da Motta declined. Then director Pedro Barbosa became interested to direct it in 2014, with Ulisses Da Motta as associate producer. Three years passed and Barbosa couldn't put the project on move. So Monteiro asked Da Motta once again to direct and he ultimately accepted.
The concept of never showing the actors' faces was in the screenplay since the beginning.
Some elements in the script were used in other movies written by Roger Monteiro. Washed Up (2015), for instance, have a pub as scenery with a jazz song playing throughout the movie. Venatio (2016), on the other hand, borrowed the scene were traces of a crime are destroyed by fire. Both were release prior to Pelos Velhos Tempos, but its script was written at least two or three years before these movies.