Serre moi fort

The film director Mathieu Amalric explained the origin of the title and why it is written without an hyphen. It initially came from the song "La nage indienne" by Etienne Daho, which contains "Serre-moi fort. Si ton corps se fait plus léger, nous pourrons nous sauver" (with an hyphen, according to the French spelling rules) and was rewritten to become "Serre moins fort. Si ton coeur se fait plus léger, je pourrai me sauver" (without an hyphen, according to the French spelling rules). Mixing both versions, this gave a temporary title "Serre moi(ns) fort". Finally, the title was changed back to the first version, but with the hyphen still dropped: "Serre moi fort", with the 3 words "isolated" from each other.

Referenced in Film Junk Podcast: Episode 876: Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)