In the original script, the father was due to die and was not scheduled to return at the time of the dinner scene. Maurice Pialat walked into the scene and left the actors to improvise in a situation they hadn't planned for.
In the film, Sandrine Bonnaire's character, Suzanne, loses her virginity to the American, the character played by Tom Stevens. Bonnaire herself had introduced Stevens to director Maurice Pialat, having met him shortly before during a brief vacation in England, and the two actors then became engaged (their relationship lasted two years). Thus film fiction mingled with Bonnaire's real life with the only difference being that the young actress, as she herself revealed, had already had her first time at 14 with another guy.
Film debut of Sandrine Bonnaire, who was 15/16 during filming. Her two film appearances prior to this film were two uncredited roles.
Casting director Dominique Besnehard initially suggested Robin Renucci to play the role of Robert, before director Maurice Pialat asked Besnehard to play the role himself.
Sandrine Bonnaire initially applied to be an extra for director Maurice Pialat's film project "Meurtrières". After that project fell apart however (it was eventually made after the director's death as Meurtrières (2006)), Pialat offered her the lead role here.