lorena and matthew rosen were responsible for the film's original story idea while janice y. perez and dean rosen wrote the screenplay. the film was produced to tell of a relatively unknown account of president manuel l. quezon rescuing jewish refugees from the holocaust and temporarily providing them shelter in the philippines. one of the challenges the writers dealt with during "quezon's game"'s research phase was the lack of filipino historical manuscripts tackling the historical account. they referred to theses and dissertations made by americans, and corresponded with the descendants of alex and herbert frieder who played a major role in quezon's plan.