Given the difficult subject matter of refugees, Ben Sharrock was quite surprised in talking to people who had fled their home countries that many of them took comfort in humor. That's why he deliberately incorporated a lot of humor into his screenplay.
Although the main location is never specified, the film was actually shot on the Uist Islands in the Outer Hebrides.
Debuting director Ben Sharrock has a strong background in Arab history and suffering that informed his screenplay. He studied Arabic and politics for his undergraduate degree, lived in Damascus for the third year of his degree until the break-out of civil war in 2011 and worked in refugee camps in Algeria.
This is the first feature film to be shot on the islands of Uist.
Ben Sharrock wrote the screenplay whilst staying on Uist. He'd never heard of the place before but a quick look on Google Maps showed him how remote it was. He found the experience to be really creatively liberating - though the lack of wi-fi on the islands was an issue.
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