Almost four hours of film was shot on the island and was edited down to just 80 minutes by Derek N. Twist.
New 35mm print made and shown September 1999 as part of NY Film Festival.
The cast and crew stayed on Foula for many months. This was before the airstrip was built and they had to use local fishing boats as ferries.
When he was young, Michael Powell read a newspaper article about the evacuation of the island of Hirta (St. Kilda), west of the Hebrides, and he thought he could make a great film about it.