The film is semi-autobiographical for writer-director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and is based on her experiences as a student at Les Amandiers theatre school in Nanterre in the 1980s where she studied under Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Romans. Her fellow students at the time included Agnès Jaoui, Vincent Perez, Thibault de Montalembert, Marianne Denicourt, Bruno Todeschini, Isabelle Renauld, Eva Ionesco, Laurent Grévill, Hélène de Saint-Père and Bernard Nissile.
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Nadia Tereszkiewicz previously acted together in Dominik Moll's Seules les bêtes (2019).