Director Milan Blažeković had previously worked on several animated shorts and "Professor Balthazar" episodes for Zagreb Film, before heading on to direct 1986's "The Elm-Chanted Forest" and its 1990 sequel "The Magician's Hat" for the Croatia Film studio. For "Lapitch", he also served as a screenplay writer and layout artist. The film featured a roster of well-known Croatian actors, among them Relja Bašić, Emil Glad, Tarik Filipović and Ivana Bakarić. Child actors Ivan Gudeljević and Maja Rožman played the title character and his girlfriend respectively.