For Imelda 4: le cadeau (2022), Martin Villeneuve needed 'stand-ins' for Robert Lepage and Lynda Beaulieu (who play his parents in the movie), to shoot inserts that he hadn't had time to film during principal photography. In an odd twist of fate, he enlisted his real parents to step in as 'stand-ins' for the actors playing them in fictional roles.
Lynda Beaulieu is Robert Lepage's sister and agent, but the two play a couple in this film. Ever since Martin Villeneuve had seen Beaulieu performing small parts in Lepage's The Confessional (1995), Le polygraphe (1996), Nô (1998) and Triptych (2013), he felt she had real talent as an actress and cast her as his mother in Imelda 4: le cadeau (2022). Villeneuve later declared in an interview that "This was no coincidence, given that Robert and Lynda acted as mentors, even 'spiritual parents' for me."
This is a third collaboration for Martin Villeneuve and Robert Lepage, who had previously worked together on Mars and April (2012) and Imelda 2: le notaire (2020).
Imelda's dog Pipo, who'd appeared in Imelda 2: le notaire (2020), is back in this fourth installment of the series. The same Fox Terrier (actually named "Barbie") was used for filming.
This film was shot in only one day, on March 7th, 2021. It was initially set to be filmed on February 13th, 2021- Imelda's actual birthday - but had to be pushed back nearly a month because of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. Since the cast & crew couldn't shoot in the village of Gentilly (where the first three movies in the series were partly filmed) due to the pandemic, Martin Villeneuve had to find a location in Montreal that resembled his parents' real house, where the action takes place.