The American boy who flees from NKVD and becomes Ivan Korcherga's guide is played by Anton Sviatoslav Greene from Ann Arbor, Michigan, whose great-grandfather Mykhailo Soroka was a political prisoner of a Soviet labor camp. His Americanized Ukrainian language was an ideal fit for the part of the son of a US engineer.
Many kobzars in the film are played by real blind people from all over Ukraine. For example, the fight scene between the blind minstrel and NKVD officers was played by Paralympics judo prize-winner Ihor Zasyadkovych. Specifically for the film, Zasyadkovych and the stunts crew restored the 'crutch'--the art of self-defense that blind minstrels used in olden times.
Oles Sanin is a kobzar himself. He got some ideas for this film while serving as a guide for a blind minstrel. At some period of his life he made his living making musical instruments.
To recreate the Soviet newsreel on the production of the first Soviet tractor, Oles Sanin used the original Parvo Debrie camera, the kind used by Dziga Vertov for his famous 'Man with a Movie Camera' (1929).
The main character was to be played by Jack Palance, who was of Ukrainian ancestry and could speak Ukrainian; unfortunately he died in 2006 at the film development stage.