Kokkinos invited Australian choreographer, Meryl Tankard, to work on the dance choreography of the film. Kokkinos notes that her biggest challenge for the casting of the female leads was that their identity remains anonymous yet the audience is expected to engage with them like the lead Daniel. Bridget, who is played by Anna Torv, was cast as a foil character to Julie, who is self-absorbed in dance, yet fails to extend that passion into other areas of her life. In contrast to the depiction of Julie in the novel, Kokkinos subverts her identity for an Australian context and casts Deborah Mailman who is an Indigenous Australian. Colin Friels, who plays Olsen, was drawn to the script due to Kokkinos' reputation for being meticulous in her preparation and emphasis on rehearsing for perfection. Regardless, Kokkinos had been a long time admirer of her performances in other roles. Similarly, Greta Scacchi clinched her role as Isabel based on her strong dancing ability as she had grown up dancing with her mother who was a professional.

ДЄs dance is featured heavily in the film, the successful casting of Tom Long as Daniel was reliant on his dancing abilities rather than solely his skill as an actor. In conjunction with the shifting city-scape, Kokkinos elected to employ blackouts as transition shots to emphasise Daniel's emotional isolation that proceeds his rape.

The change between the two settings is timed with Daniel's abduction and rape, and is purposefully crafted by Kokkinos to represent his internal trauma. The production used forty-two locations, often switching between gentrified Melbourne and more sterile urban scapes. Kokkinos subverts the original Amsterdam setting of the novel and replaces it with the inner-city streets of Melbourne. However, the initially planned final week of shooting was delayed four months due to lead actor, Tom Long, breaking his ankle on set. The initial shoot took place over seven weeks during March and April 2005.

Anna Torv as Bridget/ The Leading Hooded Woman.

The film concludes on this ambiguous note, with Daniel weeping in the arms of a policeman. This leads him into trouble with the law, and to an eventual breakdown that may or may not prove cathartic. Obsessed with finding the culprits, who he has reason to believe are from the vicinity, he dates every woman who bears a resemblance to his abductors, hoping to identify them. His sceptical live-in lover, a ballerina, suspecting that he was unfaithful to her during his absence, leaves him. In the aftermath, he loses his ability to dance and has problems readjusting to normal life. Traumatised, Daniel neither reports his kidnapping and rape to the authorities, nor reveals it to family, friends or colleagues. They proceed to hold him in an abandoned warehouse for about two weeks, mutilating him sexually and using him for their own physical and psychological gratification, before dumping him blindfolded from a car near his home. Daniel ( Tom Long), an Australian classical dancer, is drugged and abducted in an alley by three hooded women.

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