kviff.com
News
Festival Guide
  • Tickets and Festival Pass
  • Accommodations
  • Transportation
  • Festival cinemas
  • No Barriers project
  • Kids at the festival
  • Festival Shop
Program
  • Catalogue of films
  • Accompanying programme
  • Archive of films
  • Audience award
  • KVIFF Talks
  • Film Entry
Film Industry
  • Industry accreditation
  • Film Industry at KVIFF
  • Industry Days Programme
  • KVIFF Eastern Promises
  • KVIFF Talents
Press
  • Press accreditation
  • Press Service
  • For download
  • Press releases
  • Photogallery
  • Videogallery
About the festival
  • Festival description
  • Programme sections
  • Awards
  • History
  • We support non-profits
  • Photogallery
  • Partners
  • Why We Support the Festival
  • Contacts
CZ
Sign in
Film Archive

Conversation with My Gardener

Official Selection - Competition 2007 / Dialogue avec mon jardinier / France 2007

Stars of French cinema Daniel Auteuil and Jean-Pierre Darroussin play a painter and his gardener, otherwise old friends from primary school who meet up again in the painter’s family home and re-establish and deepen their friendship amid amiable and caustic discussions.

Conversation with My Gardener Conversation with My Gardener

Synopsis

A successful painter leaves Paris to return to the village in central France where he was born more than 50 years ago. Since the death of his parents the unoccupied house has been surrounded by gardens that the painter has neither the will nor the know-how to cultivate. To his great surprise his ad for a gardener is answered by an old friend from primary school. A mature, friendly bond develops between the two men that is enriched by the different experiences they have had in life. The gardener’s directness and the genuine spontaneity of his worldly wisdom, in particular, captivates the metropolitan, who takes a new view of life, love, and of vegetables and funerals. The inconspicuously elegant direction of Jean Becker makes room for the meeting of two outstanding French actors, Daniel Auteuil and Jean-Pierre Darroussin, whose brilliant performances rank the story of the friendship between painter and gardener among the best French films of the year.

About the film

109 min / Color, 35 mm

Director Jean Becker / Screenplay Jean Cosmos, Jacques Monnet, Jean Becker podle románu Henriho Cueca / based on the novel by Henri Cueco / Dir. of Photography Jean-Marie Dreujou / Music Ahmet Gulbay / Editor Jacques Witta / Producer Louis Becker / Production ICE 3 / Cast Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Fanny Cottençon, Alexia Barlier, Hiam Abbass, Élodie Navarre / Contact Studiocanal , ICE 3
www: www.studiocanal.com

About the director

Jean Becker

Jean Becker (b. 1938, Paris) started his career in the film industry as an assistant to his father Jacques, but he also cooperated with Julien Duvivier and Henri Verneuil. At the beginning of the 1960s he started directing independently and cast Jean-Paul Belmondo in a number of crime films (A Man Named Rocca and Tender Scoundrel). After a nearly 20-year pause he returned with the film One Deadly Summer in 1983, a portrait of a girl looking for the criminals who raped her mother years before (which won four national César awards). More than 10 years later, Becker won acclaim for his psychological drama Elisa, with Vanessa Paradis and Gérard Depardieu in the lead roles. His filmography also includes: Children of the Marshlands (Les enfants du marais, 1999), A Crime in Paradise (Un crime au paradis, 2000), and Strange Gardens (Effroyables jardins, 2002). He is currently at work on his next film Deux jours à tuer.

Contacts

Studiocanal
50 rue Camille Desmoulins, 928 63, Issy les Moulineaux Cedex 9
France
Phone: +33 892 393 910
E-mail: [email protected]

ICE 3
13 rue Yves Toudic, 750 10, Paris
France
Phone: +33 144 525 690
Fax: +33 144 525 691
E-mail: [email protected]

Guests

Géraldine Lepicard
Sales Agent

Jean Becker
Film Director, Film Director

Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Actor / Film Director, Actor / Film Director

Louis Becker
Producer

Other partners
Newsletter

First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.

Follow us on the web:

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
is part of the KVIFF Group family, which covers other projects as well:

© 2025 KVIFF GROUP

Rules for Visitors / Website visitors privacy policy / GTC / Personal Data Protection / Rules for Claim / Rules and Regulations / Contacts