In 1977, fifteen years before the Bosnian War ravaged their lives, Halima's (Alma Prica) niece Safija (Olga Pakalović) became pregnant by Slavomir (Mijo Jurišić), a Serb man.

Beaten and ostracized by her Bosniak family, Safija gave the infant boy to the childless Halima to raise, telling Slavomir it was stillborn.

[8][9] The screenplay was inspired by the real-life story of Bosniak couple Zahida and Muharem Fazlić from a village near Prijedor in western Bosnia whose adopted son Emir was executed in the Korićani Cliffs massacre of 1992.

[11] Feđa Isović wrote the first draft of the script in the middle of the 2000s decade, for his friend Benjamin Filipović, with whom he had previously worked with on the black comedy Dobro uštimani mrtvaci (Well-Tempered Corpses) in 2005.

After Filipović's death on 20 July 2006, the script was handed over to Croatian director Arsen Anton Ostojić, who directed the final version of the film.