The film reuses Paul Dédalus, writer/director Arnaud Desplechin's alter ego, from Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle) (1996) and I miei giorni più belli (2015). The love triangle from Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle) (1996) is revisited in a sequence halfway through the movie. The Fantomas 70 (1964) sequence is based on Desplechin's memory of his first movie theater experience, where he went with his grandmother to see Fantomas 70 (1964).
First time appearing in front of the camera for director Arnaud Desplechin, in the Shoshana Felman sequence and the Kent Jones sequence. He is also narrating the whole movie, which he didn't do in a studio, as he didn't want to do that, so he recited and recorded the text on his own with a microphone, when it wasn't his editor recording him with her phone's dictation app.
Arnaud Desplechin's producers suggested he make a documentary about philosopher Stanley Cavell. Because Desplechin only ever did fiction, he tried instead to do something hybrid, that is both fiction and documentary. He stated that he wrote this movie in a fever, and ended up with something which is at the same time a request from his producers, and a deeply personal essay.
It was shot in mid-2023 in the north of France, in Avion, Roubaix and Tourcoing, then shooting moved to Paris.