Born in Zagreb, Croatia, Dukić says that as a child he enjoyed telling stories and was keen to express himself visually, so—not finding painting, writing or theater "dynamic" enough—he became interested in filmmaking and made many amateur short films as a teenager.
[5] He had contacted Keret immediately after reading the novella and asked for the rights to the story, but Dukić was turned away with Keret telling him that he had other film-adaptation offers from French and German filmmakers and would only give away the rights if he was shown a complete screenplay that he felt did the story justice.
[6] Dukić's main storyline was the same as the original story, but he added many of his own details to the film, such as the characters not being able to smile in the afterworld and the absence of stars in the night sky.
[7][8] In writing the script and directing the film, Dukić says his goal was to "preserve [the novella's] essence but yet to add as much of my own sensibility and vision to make it a personal movie".
[1] He lists his creative inspirations as film directors Luis Buñuel, Robert Altman, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Dušan Makavejev, Jim Jarmusch, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Aldrich, Andrei Tarkovsky, Samuel Fuller, Wim Wenders and David Lynch.