The disaster over the Boden lake near Überlingen city (Germany) occurred on July 1, 2002, when Bashkirian Airlines passenger jet Tu-154, flying from Moscow to Barcelona and having Vitaliy Kaloev's wife, daughter, and son aboard, collided with DHL cargo jet. 71 people were killed.
In order to reliably reconstruct the events shown in film, the director personally met with Vitaliy Kaloev.
The film shows 6 years of Vitaliy Kaloev's life which required 6 different makeup designs; that's how much the hero changed in that much time.