The documentary is the result of twelve years of research by Bremen-based author and filmmaker Hermann Pölking on the former Prussian province of East Prussia. He draws on film sources, mostly amateur films dating back to 1912, and doesn't use staging, statements from contemporary witnesses or experts, or reshoots. Since more than 80 percent of the footage was shot by amateurs, the narrative is always biographical, immersing the viewer in a “land that has disappeared from history”.