Shot on Montserrat, an island south of Antigua significantly depopulated following a major volcanic eruption in early 2000s.
Zeitlin loves the challenge and creative chaos of working with little or no-experience child actors who are not yet fixated on "Hollywood" and their careers , and where the film set is more like a "playground" of fun than work. And especially on this film, not only did he have to teach his young cast how to act, but also to swim.
Just as he did in making Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), Zeitlin cast a non-actor, local six-year-old to play a major role--in this case a Rastafarian Antigua boy named Yashua Mack to play Peter Pan, whom Zeitlin found in a remote forested compound. And as with "Beasts," other members of the mostly amateur cast were discovered after a year-long auditioning process that considered some 1,500 kids.
Location scouting on the volcanic island of Montserrat was considered so "messy and dangerous" that no studio executives ever visited to supervise, the set open only to those essential to shooting a scene.
Benh Zeitlin has explained he shot this movie on 16mm film not only because of the "beauty" it captures but also the arduous, remote island locations--some of which required two hours of hiking to reach--offered no electric power for large lighting set-ups.