While director Kaouther Ben Hania was visiting the Louvre Museum in Paris in 2012, there was a retrospective of Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. There she saw, in Napoleon III's apartments, Delvoye's Tim (2006 - 08), in which the artist had tattooed the back of Tim Steiner, who was sitting on an armchair with his shirt off displaying Delvoye's design. The piece was sold to a German art collector and Tim is contractually obliged to spend a certain amount of time, topless and sitting still, in a gallery every year.
Wim Delvoye appears in the movie as the insurance guy.
In English the title of the film is "The Man Who Sold His Skin", but in the original Arabic version the title means "The Man Who Sold His Back".
The movie was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards as the first ever nominee from Tunisia.