Octavijan Miletić (1902-1987) is considered to be the first director of Croatian and Yugoslavian cinema.  Born in Zagreb to a philosopher father who was also a symbolic figure of Croatian theatre, he discovered a passion for cinema early on. In 1926 he acquired his first amateur camera and quickly won prizes for his films around the world. Furthermore he was the first Croatian film director to go from silent to speaking film and in 1944 made the first Croatian long-length film: Lisinski.

While devoting himself to experimental cinema, Miletić also liked to parody expressionist films and genre films, always paying particular attention to aesthetics. Two years after filming Nocturno, Miletić filmed Šešir in which he continued to experiment with visual effects, while returning to a more classic narration.

Šešir starts with a succession of naïve and romantic sketches, which fade into sad, dull everyday life. The hat, which reflects the life of the main character, was a brilliant way of staging and punctuating time.  Filmed in 35mm film, Šešir was the only fiction film in sound made by Miletić before the war.  The film's soundtrack composed by Eduard Gloz contained only music, Miletić having chosen to tell the story in a strictly visual way without dialogue or voice off.

Šešir is part of the collection of amateur films that the film maker donated to the Croatian Cinematheque at the beginning of the 80's.