Before the production began, Paul Verhoeven went to a Dutch language institute to learn French, in order to better communicate with the cast and crew. He said it was simply necessary, because according to tradition, making a French movie should be done with an all-French crew. He initially spoke English with them, but this didn't work efficiently. Fortunately, Verhoeven had once been to a French school in his youth, so he picked up the language quickly.
Paul Verhoeven said he had a great time working in France. Due to the French love for culture, he had much fewer issues with budgets and the movie's subject matter compared to the Netherlands and Hollywood. Moreover, he was pleasantly surprised by how courteously and respectfully he was received as a filmmaker, and recognized by several French festivals (including Cannes) for his "author qualities". This was in sharp contrast with how many of his Dutch films were initially received by the Dutch press, which was often lukewarm to bad. His biggest Dutch commercial success,Fiore di carne (1973), was even angrily rejected as 'pornography' by the selection committee of the Cannes Film Festival at the time, despite the festival's reputation of not eschewing controversial productions. He found working in France so satisfying that he is planning to make more movies there in the future.
Paul Verhoeven made the movie with an all-French crew which included none of his former Dutch crew members, except for his personal assistant Mita de Groot and editor Job ter Burg. He claimed that the prospect of working with an unknown crew in a new language gave him so much stress that it caused him severe headaches in the months prior to filming. However, these were gone on the first day of shooting, and due to the professionalism of the crew and their love of film, the production went very smoothly.
Official submission of France for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 89th Academy Awards in 2017.