Alice waters named her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, after the character, Panisse, in this movie.
Filmed concurrently with Fanny (2000) and César (2000). On location filming in Marseille was complicated by uncooperative locals who would purposefully disrupt the shoot, such as a man who proudly honked his boat horn during takes.
Second remake of a work by Marcel Pagnol by director Nicolas Ribowski, writer/producer Jacques Nahum and star Roger Hanin after La femme du boulanger (1999). Moreover, Ribowski and Hanin collaborated on numerous episodes of Fabien Nataf.