Stories from the set

Factual error: Princess Diana died on the morning of August 31, 1997, not August 30. In addition, the day mentioned in the film, April 7, 1980, was a Monday, not a Friday.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet dreamed of casting Emily Watson in the lead role (hence the French-sounding name of the main character, Amelie). The actress also wanted to play Amelie, but this did not happen for two reasons – she did not speak French and, moreover, she had already agreed to star in Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001).

The film is full of stories and memories from the director's collection, which he began assembling back in 1974.

The photo collection that Nino collects actually exists and belongs to the director's friend Michel Folco (he is thanked in the end credits).

It was not possible to show the real photo collection in the film (French law prohibits showing random people in a movie without their consent), so the photo collection had to be recreated from photographs of extras. To do this, the actors were seated in front of a camera and asked to make one expression or another, and often they were simply told, "Oh, you have chalk on your shoe" or "What's that on your forehead?" and at that moment the shutter was pressed.

The paintings we see in Amélie's room, as well as the imaginary crocodile that the heroine is friends with, were created and painted by the artist Michael Sowa.

In those parts of Paris where the main scenes of the film were shot, the artists and set decorators had to work hard to clean the walls of the buildings of all kinds of graffiti.

Yann Tiersen might not have become the film's composer if Jean-Pierre Jeunet had not accidentally heard his music.

The one-legged man dancing in the television clip is Sam "Peg Leg" Jackson, a blues singer.

The traveling gnome was the subject of pranks in England and France in the 90s. In 1997, the leader of the Garden Gnome Liberation Front (French: Front de Liberation des Nains de Jardins) was accused of stealing 150 such gnomes. This idea later became the basis for an advertising campaign by an online travel agency.