'La Faute a Fidel!" is, in a sense, a project engineered by daughters. Director Julie Gavras' father is the famed prorevoltionary director Costa Gavras, its lead actress Julie Depardieu is the daughter of Gerard, France's most treasured actor. And Nina Kervel, who was age 9 when the film was made, comes off like a natural-born daughter of everyone involved in the movie.
"She's very good at giving and then withdrawing," is how Gavras described the young girl during a promotional trip to Tokyo. "She was totally uninhibited, and behaved like everyone on the set was her family, and it was therefore OK to take liberties, but in a nice, daughterly way."
Of Depardieu, Gavras says that they shared a kind of short-hand about certain emotions and experiences, because they had grown up in the film industry. "It's not that we had the exact same experiences," said Gavras. "But there's a certain air of professionalism to Julie that I could identify with. I'm very glad we've had the chance to work together."