In 2005, Jean-Claude Brisseau was sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence and a EUR 15,000 fine for sexual harassment on two actresses (Noémie Kocher and Veronique Hirat) between 1999 and 2001 during auditions for the film. A year later, the director was again sentenced after the declaration of a third victim (Julie Quéré).
The auditions called for the young women to masturbate themselves or one another in hotel rooms or in public places. Brisseau sometimes filmed the sessions, but not always. According to the actresses, the director sometimes masturbated himself - a claim he recognized during the investigation but denied during the trial. The auditions were repeated over several years before the director dropped the actresses claiming that they did not fit the part. Brisseau always said the auditions were conducted solely for artistic reasons.
Chosen by "Les Cahiers du cinéma" (France) as one of the 10 best pictures of 2002 (#01, with "Ten")
In two cases, the French translation of Bhagavad Gita is referenced: (1) "...bien que tu tiennes de savants discours, tu t'affliges sans raison. ni les vivants ni les morts le sage ne les pleure." (...though you make wise speeches, you grieve for no reason. the living nor the dead do the wise mourn them...); (2) "...car jamais ne fut le temps où nous n'existions, moi, toi, et tous ces rois des hommes ; et jamais dans l'avenir, aucun de nous ne cessera d'être." (...for never was there a time when I, you, and all these kings of men did not exist; and never in the future shall any of us cease to be.).