The majority of the actors are amateurs, and not just any amateurs, they are (mostly) girls who play what they experience.
Séverine Caneele said, "Joanna is a prisoner, an experience I didn't have. So I spent some time in a cell. At that point, the guards really thought I was a new arrival. The other girls I shot with, who are real prisoners, helped me a lot. They helped me to feel at ease, to feel, to understand. I developed friendships with most of them, what happened between us during the shoot was very strong."
Director Bénédicte Liénard said It was Bella (played by Béatrice Spiga, a real prisoner in her life) who showed Séverine Caneele the posture of the naked body search. "Séverine allows Bella to say, for example, that in this situation you have to bend your knees more or bend over more. It is the inmates who guided Séverine for the scene in the isolation cell. This cell is also made of smells, tactile sensations, all things that the cinema does not reproduce... While Hélène Louvart and I were preparing the light to be switched on and off, the group of inmates remained with Séverine, in the cell, door closed. They came out a few dozen minutes later, telling me that Séverine was ready to shoot. Séverine was more than upset, something had been passed on from an experience. And I shot."