The story began with a photograph taken by director Jeck Cogama during his college days. It was a photo of three squatter children playing on makeshift rafts, floating in the polluted Manila Bay.

He was struck by the openness of their faces, their carefree smiles. Cogama related this experience with his own troubled childhood, where he lived in a squatters area, his father abandoning their family and his mother slowly growing crazy. As a child he always thought there was an island across the sea that he could go to, on a boat, to a place where it's quiet and peaceful.

In 2005, Jeck, already a promising experimental director, took his story to Arkeofilms who promptly produced Putot for him. The result is an intensely personal, earnest film about friendship and escape.