Bodanzky's main concern was transposing the story's setting from the 1970s to the current day because she wanted to cause an impact. She felt audiences would find the situations in the film unlikely if it were set in the past. She wanted to show that the end of Brazilian military government was not the end of what she dubbed "concentration camps". To achieve this goal, she also used a documentary-like film style to generate further impact. She filmed in actual hospitals that were disabled because of reports of mistreatment, and added extras to improve the realistic climate.