In the wake of the 1980 Quebec referendum, director Denys Arcand felt Quebec's interests had shifted from politics to "individual pleasures", and with a small budget of $800,000 for his next project, envisioned a dialogue-heavy film like Louis Malle's 1981 film "My Dinner with Andre". Arcand viewed sex as the most likely topic that could sustain audience interest for an entire film. He worked on the screenplay throughout the summer of 1984, under the working title "Conversations scabreuses". He chose tenured university professors as his subject matter because he felt that such people had less of a Quebecois accent, which would make the film more accessible to French-speaking audiences around the world. He avoided naming local places for the same reason, even though this went against the wishes of the National Film Board of Canada, which co-sponsored the film.