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An English version of the France-produced action comedy feature “The Gardener” (“Le Jardinier”), written and directed by David Carhon, stars martial artist Jean-Claude Van Dame, with Michaël Youn, Nawell Madani, Carla Poquin and Kaaris, opening June 6. 2025 in theaters:

“…’Serge’ holds a state secret. He, his family and his gardener ‘Leo’ (Van Damme) appear on a government ‘death list’. But they attempt to devise a plan to stay alive…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

Action movie icon Jean-Claude Van Damme is back in action in the new trailer for next month’s The Gardener. And "The Muscles from Brussels" will flex his comedy biceps as well as his action ones in this tale of a mysterious gardener who finds himself protecting U.S. senior official Serge Shuster and his family after he finds himself on a hit list. Thankfully, Van Damme is no ordinary gardener and boasts a particular set of skills far beyond pruning. You can check out the new trailer for The Gardener below.

Directed by David Charhon (The Last Mercenary) and written by Charhon, Vincent De Brus, and Sebastien Fechner, The Gardener stars Michaël Youn, Nawell Madani, Kaaris, Matthias Quiviger, Jérôme Le Banner, and Carla Poquin alongside Van Damme. The Gardener is all set to land in theaters and on VOD on June 6, 2025, and alongside the newly released footage, you can...

"El Sergio is backo!" Blue Fox Ent. has revealed an official US trailer for a fun French action comedy called The Gardener, finally getting released in the US this summer. We posted the original French trailer for this film last December because it debuted streaming on Prime Video only in France earlier this year. The movie stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Léo, an enigmatic gardener whose skills extend far beyond landscape maintenance. The story draws viewers into a murky affair of political elimination orchestrated by high level government. Serge holds a state secret. He, his family, and his gardener Leo appear on a government death list. They attempt to devise a plan to stay alive while mercenaries hunt them. The cast includes Michaël Youn, Nawell Madani, Carla Poquin, and rapper Kaaris. It is sort of a John Wick riff, about a simple guy who's actually an assassin. Though it seems...

Stars: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Michaël Youn, Nawell Madani, Carla Poquin, Jérôme Le Banner, Matthias Quiviger, Kaaris | Written by David Charhon, Vincent De Brus, Sebastien Fechner | Directed by David Charhon

The Gardener (Le Jardinier), not to be confused with the Gary Daniels/Robert Bronzi film, reunites Jean-Claude Van Damme and David Charhon who directed him in The Last Mercenary. And like that film, it’s an action comedy, but with the comedy dialed up a bit higher, and the action a bit more on the brutal side.

This time out, The Muscles From Brussels plays Leo, a man who simply wants to tend to plants on the large estate owned by Serge Shuster Special Adviser to the President of France. Nobody seems quite sure how he ended up with the position, and they think he’s a bit odd, but he does a good job so they’ve let him stay on.

“The Gardener” (“Le Jardinier”) is a new French-language live-action comedy feature, written and directed by David Carhon, starring martial artist Jean-Claude Van Dame, with Michaël Youn, Nawell Madani, Carla Poquin and Kaaris, streaming January 10, 2025 on Prime Video France:

“…’Serge’ holds a state secret. He, his family and his gardener ‘Leo’ (Van Damme) appear on a government ‘death list’. But they attempt to devise a plan to stay alive…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

"I don't understand. It must be a gardener's thing." Prime Video France has revealed the first official trailer for an action comedy called The Gardener, or Le Jardinier in French. This is ready for a debut in France streaming on Pv in January, though strangely not worldwide - only in France with no US release confirmed or set yet. Even though we all thought Jcvd had retired from acting, especially from any action movies, he continues to appear in movies all the time and take on action roles anyway. The movie stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Léo, an enigmatic gardener whose skills extend far beyond landscape maintenance. The story draws viewers into a murky affair of political elimination orchestrated by high level government. Serge holds a state secret. He, his family, and his gardener Leo appear on a government death list. They attempt to devise a plan to stay alive.

It will be a very merry Christmas for Jean-Claude Van Damme fans. Three months after its release on digital, the action movie icon's latest movie will hit a major streaming platform this month.

Kill 'Em All 2 will arrive on Netflix on December 25. Directed by Valeri Milev and written by James Agnew, the direct-to-video action film sequel premiered on September 24 starring the returning Van Damme as Phillip. Following the events of 2017's Kill 'Em All, Philip is out of spy game retirement, having lived peacefully off the grid as he becomes the target of Vlad, the brother of the first film's antagonist. The movie also stars Jacqueline Fernandez as Vanessa, Peter Stormare as CIA Agent Holman, and María Conchita Alonso as FBI Agent Sanders.

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Legendary actor Denzel Washington secures a major feat thanks to the success attained by his latest film,...

Paris and Los Angeles-based Other Angle Pictures has scored further sales on its Jean Claude Van Damme-powered action comedy The Gardener (Le Jardinier) and released a first-look image.

The film has sold to Falcon for the Middle East, Films4U in Portugal, Spentzos in Greece, and Amazon Prime Video for Italy and Spain, joining previous sales to North America (Bluefox), France (Amazon), German-speaking territories (Plaion) and eastern Europe (Mediasquad).

Van Damme and Michaël Youn star in the film about a man who lands on the government’s blacklist and hatches an elaborate plan with his odd gardener to avoid...

Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in the upcoming action-comedy film Le jardinier, which Amazon Prime Video acquired for France and Other Angle Pictures will handle international sales for the film.

As reported by Variety, Other Angle Pictures secured sales in the United States with Blue Fox and in Germany with Plaion Pictures. Russia's All Media and Media Squad in Eastern Europe also bought distribution rights from Other Angle. Le jardinier begins filming on February 5 in Belgium and France, with the iconic Van Damme starring opposite Michaël Youn (Bde). Other members of the stellar cast include Nawell Madani (Jusqu'ici tout va bien), Kaaris (Braqueurs), Ragnar Le Breton (Un Stupéfiant Noël), Carla Poquin, and Jérôme Le Banner. Sébastien Fechner at Rose Prods will produce the film.

Related Disney Officially Abandons Another Jonathan Majors Project The Jonathan Majors-starring movie reportedly had an awards campaign planned before it was officially canceled.

Le jardinier reunites...

Jean-Claude Van Damme, the global martial artist turned action hero whose 2021 movie “The Last Mercenary” was a hit on Netflix, has another film on the horizon. He will star opposite Michaël Youn (“Bde”) in “Le jardinier,” another high-voltage action-comedy reuniting him with “The Last Mercenary” director David Charhon.

Amazon Prime Video has acquired “Le jardinier” for France, while Other Angle Pictures is handling international sales on the movie and has already secured sales in the U.S. (Blue Fox), Germany (Plaion Pictures), Russia (All Media) and Eastern Europe (Media Squad).

Filming will kick off Feb. 5 in Belgium and France with a popular cast including Nawell Madani (“Jusqu’ici tout va bien”) Kaaris (“Braqueurs” ), Ragnar Le Breton (“Un Stupéfiant Noël”), Carla Poquin (alias “Poqssi”) and Jérôme Le Banneur. “Le jardinier” is produced by Sébastien Fechner at Rose Prods.

The movie follows Serge and his family, who turn up on the death...

VFX powerhouse MacGuff is using its proprietary tools Face Engine and the new Face Creative Engine, in conjunction with traditional CGI, on a slew of French and international projects for streamers and French broadcasters.

France is one of the world’s biggest VFX hubs, leveraged by its Trip scheme, that enables foreign shoots to tap into a 40 cash rebate on all eligible expenses – including expenses for live action that are not VFX related – for international projects whose VFX expenses surpass €2 million (2.16 million) spent in France.

Philippe Sonrier, MacGuff’s co-founder and joint director, says that the studio is seeing rising demand from streamers. The studio has 70 staff, but plans to grow to around 120 in 2023, due to rising demand.

For Netflix, MacGuff is providing VFX work on three series, including Season 3 of “Lupin,” having worked on Seasons 1 and 2. “Wonderman” is about the life of French empresario Bernard Tapie, in which the studio uses de-ageing tools.

Leonine is opening Russell Crowe thriller ‘Unhinged’ in Germany.

As cinemas begin to reopen again in many territories, Screen is tracking which films are being released in key territories each week.

Cinema reopening dates around the world: latest updates France, opening Wednesday July 15

The French box office entered its fourth full week of activity on July 15, following the reopening of cinemas on June 22 after their 14-week Covid-19 hiatus.

New films on release this week include Francois Ozon’s young adult drama Summer Of 85. Diaphana Distribution pushed the launch forward from France’s typical Wednesday release day to Tuesday, to...

Europe’s biggest nation of moviegoers, France, saw its theaters reopen with a bang on June 22 and managed to sell between 850,000 and 900,000 admissions through Sunday.

It’s roughly 50% less than an average week in June, but considering the dearth of fresh releases, the heat wave, which plagued most of the country last week, and fears of a second wave of Covid-19, it’s an “outstanding result that is beyond our most optimistic forecast,” said Eric Marti at Comscore France. Theaters had been shutdown for more than two months.

The admission tally is particularly strong since not all theaters were open during the first part of the week. Indeed, only about 60% of theaters had reopened on Monday and Tuesday, and by Wednesday there were 85% of them, said Marti. Today, most of France’s 2,040 cinemas and 5,700 screens are active.

“As many as 660,000 admissions were sold between Wednesday and Sunday, when almost all the venues had reopened,...

A mix of comedies such as Isabelle Huppert starrer “Mama Weed” and Michaël Youn’s “Divorce Club,” and director-driven titles like Claus Drexel’s “Under the Stars of Paris” were among the most buzzed-about market premieres of the UniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. The five-day showcase kicked off Jan. 17 with the world premiere of Martin Provost’s “How to Be a Good Wife” with Juliette Binoche, and wrapped Monday.

“Divorce Club” stars Arnaud Ducret and François-Xavier Demaison as a pair of 40-something divorcees who set up a dedicated membership club. Represented in international markets by Snd, the film just won the top prize at the Alpe d’Huez Comedy Film Festival.

Jean-Paul Salomé’s “Mama Weed” (pictured) stars Oscar-nominated actress Huppert as a French-Arabic translator working for the anti-drug squad in Paris. Le Pacte has now sold the film in major territories. “Mama Weed” was also presented at the Alpe d’Huez festival.

Chef Mate: Cohen’s Poke at the Restaurant World Written for Fast Food Mentality

Connoisseurs of world food porn will perhaps take keen interest in the Gallic trifle, Le Chef, a 2012 title finally unfurling stateside this summer. So wan and frothy with its generic little plot, even fans of Jean Reno will be slightly disappointed at the saccharine ambivalence evident in every aspect. Hardly as sophisticated as other recently released French food fare, like Catherine Frot headlined Haute Cuisine, or even similarly themed American titles like Jon Favreau’s Chef, director Daniel Cohen would seem inspired by a growing universal trend in the appeal of food themes, even though it technically was written and filmed before these. While it’s certainly not a terrible endeavor to experience (to its credit, the film is certainly better than Roger Gaul’s Tasting Menu) Cohen seems perfectly fine with resting in the gutter of floundering cliché,...

I think when Les Garçons et Guillaume, à table! (otherwise known as Me, Myself and Mum) not only took home the top prizes in the Directors’ Fortnight but several months down the road beat out Stranger at the Lake and Blue is the Warmest Color for the top prize at the César Awards, it might have made a case for French comedies, which for some reason I have a prejudice against. Flash back to the year before he made his third Luc Besson film – The Professional, Jean Reno hit paydirt with Les visiteurs — a travel-in-time buddy-com. Two decades later we find him in the gastronomic comedy, the 2012 item which goes by Le Chef. The Franco friendly distrib folks in the Cohen Media Group are taking Daniel Cohen’s laugher one out of the oven this Friday, June 27th in NYC and opening in select theaters nationwide. In the clip below,...

When done right, films about food naturally also touch on larger subjects like love, ambition, and artistic fulfillment. But Daniel Cohen's Le Chef does little more than illuminate the superficiality of the restaurant business.

Jacky (Michaël Youn) is an upstart chef who can't hold down a job and idolizes Alexandre Lagarde (Jean Reno), a bastion of classic French cooking. After Alexandre serendipitously tastes Jacky's food, Jacky is invited to work at Cargo Lagarde, a three-star restaurant being threatened with conversion to molecular cuisine by its slimy new owner (Julien Boisselier).

It's a breezy enough setup that makes use of Reno and Youn's comedic rapport, but Cohen makes the mistake of herding his characters into a one-sided discourse about mo...

Lucky Luke

Stars: Jean Dujardin, Michaël Youn, Sylvie Testud, Daniel Prévost, Alexandra Lamy | Written by James Huth , Sonja Shillito, Jean Dujardin | Directed by James Huth

First released in 2009, French spoof Western Lucky Luke is being re-released, presumably to capitalise on the newfound fame of Jean Dujardin, the Oscar-winning star of The Artist (the same trick was played with Cash). Lucky Luke is based on the popular Gallic comic strip of the same name (which once shared a writer with Asterix) and features Dujardin as the titular hero, a cowboy with outrageous shooting skills who is tasked by the President with purging his birthplace of Daisy Town of the various outlaws and bad guys that thrive there. Short of Blazing Saddles, the best-forgotten Wild Wild West and that episode of Red Dwarf, the Western is a genre that seems poorly served by affectionate parody; Lucky Luke is a welcome addition to this slight canon.

Back in December, we got our first look at Forum Expanded, a program of exhibitions, performances and other works that don't necessarily entail lowering the lights and peering straight ahead at the big white screen. So we already know that we'll be seeing new work by Luke Fowler, Harun Farocki and many others. The first of today's announcements from the Berlinale (February 9 through 19) fills in the details.

The addition, for example, of whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir (image above) by Eve Sussman/Rufus Corporation, "a film edited live in real time which shows a man under surveillance in a fictional East European city," solidifies the impression that Forum Expanded is a rough equivalent of Toronto's Future Projections program and Sundance's New Frontier since, by the time it rolls into Berlin, it'll already have been presented by both.

Other notable additions since December's announcement: Luc Moullet's "uncompleted project about two thieves (mother and daughter...

PARIS -- The 46th Festival de Cannes International Critics' Week will offer a taste of Latin America with a French twist, judging from today's unveiling of the sidebar's lineup.

With 13 first films competing for the Camera d'Or, and 14 directorial debuts among the 16 total features selected, "we're really fulfilling our mission to discover tomorrow's cinema," Critics' Week artistic director Jean-Christophe Berjon said. "We're here to promote research, new forms and new talents. We want to show good films from promising filmmakers. It's OK if a film isn't perfect."

The sidebar kicks off May 17 with France's "Heros" (Heroes), Bruno Merle's debut film starring Gallic comedian Michael Youn in an atypically serious role as a man responsible for warming up the audience on the set of a TV show who ends up kidnapping a famous singer.

Mexican actor-turned-helmer Gael Garcia Bernal, the sidebar's ambassador, will present his first turn in the director's chair, "Deficit", a drama centering on a family gathering where different social classes clash.

"Gael was an obvious choice", Berjon said. "He's a young actor who has worked on almost every continent, an actor who has surpassed his role as an actor because he produces, he distributes, he really works hard to promote cinema education in Mexico, he invests himself in film, he experiments.

"The idea is that a director who starts his career at Critics' Week will come back once he or she has made it and support younger filmmakers who are just starting out. This allots a large amount of exchange for the young directors -- with the guest of honor, with each other, and with the public. It's not just coming with a film, trying to sell it and leaving."

Lina Chamie will represent Brazil with her second feature, "A via lactea" (The Milky Way), about a couple who have a violent phone conversation and agree to meet -- except that the city of Sao Paulo comes between them.

PARIS -- The 46th Festival de Cannes International Critics' Week will offer a taste of Latin America with a French twist, judging from today's unveiling of the sidebar's lineup.

With 13 first films competing for the Camera d'Or, and 14 directorial debuts among the 16 total features selected, "we're really fulfilling our mission to discover tomorrow's cinema," Critics' Week artistic director Jean-Christophe Berjon said. "We're here to promote research, new forms and new talents. We want to show good films from promising filmmakers. It's OK if a film isn't perfect."

The sidebar kicks off May 17 with France's "Heros" (Heroes), Bruno Merle's debut film starring Gallic comedian Michael Youn in an atypically serious role as a man responsible for warming up the audience on the set of a TV show who ends up kidnapping a famous singer.

Mexican actor-turned-helmer Gael Garcia Bernal, the sidebar's ambassador, will present his first turn in the director's chair, "Deficit", a drama centering on a family gathering where different social classes clash.

"Gael was an obvious choice", Berjon said. "He's a young actor who has worked on almost every continent, an actor who has surpassed his role as an actor because he produces, he distributes, he really works hard to promote cinema education in Mexico, he invests himself in film, he experiments.

"The idea is that a director who starts his career at Critics' Week will come back once he or she has made it and support younger filmmakers who are just starting out. This allots a large amount of exchange for the young directors -- with the guest of honor, with each other, and with the public. It's not just coming with a film, trying to sell it and leaving."

Lina Chamie will represent Brazil with her second feature, "A via lactea" (The Milky Way), about a couple who have a violent phone conversation and agree to meet -- except that the city of Sao Paulo comes between them.

PARIS -- The 46th Festival de Cannes International Critics' Week will offer a taste of Latin America with a French twist, judging from today's unveiling of the sidebar's lineup.

With 13 first films competing for the Camera d'Or, and 14 directorial debuts among the 16 total features selected, "we're really fulfilling our mission to discover tomorrow's cinema," Critics' Week artistic director Jean-Christophe Berjon said. "We're here to promote research, new forms and new talents. We want to show good films from promising filmmakers. It's OK if a film isn't perfect."

The sidebar kicks off May 17 with France's "Heros" (Heroes), Bruno Merle's debut film starring Gallic comedian Michael Youn in an atypically serious role as a man responsible for warming up the audience on the set of a TV show who ends up kidnapping a famous singer.

Mexican actor-turned-helmer Gael Garcia Bernal, the sidebar's ambassador, will present his first turn in the director's chair, "Deficit", a drama centering on a family gathering where different social classes clash.

"Gael was an obvious choice", Berjon said. "He's a young actor who has worked on almost every continent, an actor who has surpassed his role as an actor because he produces, he distributes, he really works hard to promote cinema education in Mexico, he invests himself in film, he experiments.

"The idea is that a director who starts his career at Critics' Week will come back once he or she has made it and support younger filmmakers who are just starting out. This allots a large amount of exchange for the young directors -- with the guest of honor, with each other, and with the public. It's not just coming with a film, trying to sell it and leaving."

Lina Chamie will represent Brazil with her second feature, "A via lactea" (The Milky Way), about a couple who have a violent phone conversation and agree to meet -- except that the city of Sao Paulo comes between them.

PARIS -- The lineup for Paris Cinema 2005, the third edition of the French capital's major film event, was unveiled Tuesday with an ambitious program of 22 films in competition, 10 tributes, four retrospectives and a host of peripheral events. The two-week festival, to be held in cinemas throughout the city, opens June 28 with an open-air public screening of Frank Coraci's Around the World in 80 Days, with stars Jackie Chan, Michael Youn and Cecile de France in attendance, along with festival president Costa-Gavras.