Prospect

★★½
“Get the little things right, but…”

Coming in on a wave of hype, e.g. “The Best Indie Science Fiction Movie Since Moon“, I guess I should have listened – because I didn’t think Moon was all that great either. Here, there’s a great job done of creating a universe, and even the two lead characters are interesting enough. It’s just an abject failure to fill the world with a decent story. Still: that world… It’s a grubbily lived-in and analog future version of space, controlled with retro-styled switches, and where the beauty of the cosmos is largely glimpsed through undersized, dirty spaceship windows.

Resident in it are teenage girl Cee (Thatcher) and her father (Duplass), barely scratching a living by mining resources out of alien creatures on the surface of a planet with a toxic atmosphere. Fortune beckons, however, because he has got word of a mother-lode which will set them up for life. Unhappily, their attempt to reach it is derailed by an encounter with Ezra (Pascal) and his partner, two other prospectors of dubious morality. One thing leads to another, and Cee suddenly finds that her survival is dependent on forging an extremely uneasy alliance with Ezra.

There’s definitely the feeling that this is intended to be a space Western, with a lot of the characters seeming like they come off the range, wearing space-helmets instead of Stetsons. The weapons wielded, though hi-tech rail-guns, operate more like a Winchester Model 1873, and there’s additionally a sense of lawlessness, with the planet being a wild frontier. If you want justice – as Cee certainly does – she will have to administer it herself, because no-one else is going to do so. True Grit feels like an influence there. On occasion, the scope suddenly broadens out too, with a wide, magnificent landscape – only one with an F-sized planet hanging low in the sky.

This is all quite lovely. The problem is a incredibly underwhelming script, not helped by dialogue which often seems to border on gibberish. For example, “We have three cycles for the job before we have to catch the slingback.” What happens if you don’t catch the slingback? Is that a very bad thing? And is three cycles a lot? Hours? Days? Weeks? We never know, because Cee’s watch tells the time in some bizarre foreign language. The same obtuseness goes for much of the plot: too often, we’re never clear who’s doing what and to whom, or for what purpose. Perhaps the original short film fared better on this front?

Certainly, it feels as if Cee gives up her quest for revenge here rather too easily. Though she still has a somewhat interesting character arc. Forced to come out from under the protection of her father, and fending for herself, especially given the hostile environment, is no piece of cake. Focusing on that aspect, rather than the vaguely-defined efforts to reach the buried treasure and/or get safely off the planet’s surface, might have proved more effective.

Dir: Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell
Star: Sophie Thatcher, Pedro Pascal, Jay Duplass

A Lonely Woman

★★
“An overcooked spaghetti Western”

It’s one of those weird coincidences. I watched two action heroine flicks last weekend and both, while American, starred actresses who were born in Greece. Really, what are the odds? Sleeping Dogs Lie was the other: this is slightly superior, largely through being less wordy, and more genuinely vengeful. Coming home one night, Annie (Skafida) is stunned to find both of her parents dead in their house, the victims of an apparent robbery. But her concern is raised when their will is read, and Annie discovers that she has been disinherited, the victim of a mysterious late change. Annie was a foster kid, and never felt quite like “one of the family,” so is immediately suspicious of her siblings, especially the one who appears to have benefited from the update. The further she digs, the murkier the waters become, as she seeks bloody vengeance on those responsible – directly or indirectly – for the murder of her adopted parents.

Skafida is probably the best thing about this, simply for her presence, which is the cinematic equivalent of a heap of burning tyres – and not just for the amount of smoke she produces. [Seriously, I can’t remember the last film with so many cigarettes in it] I actually mean that comparison in a positive way, since she brings a smouldering, yet toxic intensity to proceedings – though, as in Sleeping Dogs Lie, it often feels like the heroine is acting in a second language. Still, the intensity keeps the viewer on edge, with the sense she’s a wild-card, who might explode into action at any moment, especially in her alter ego of “Jezebel”.

The problems are… Well, sad to say, just about everything else. Start with a story which appears to bounce around in time and space without any logic. For instance, early on, there’s a shootout between Jezebel and a group of disgruntled poker players, from whom she won her motorbike. The poker game itself shows up an hour or so later. There’s no explanation for this approach, and it serves no purpose either. Similarly, there are cases where the lack of background on a movie character can work in their favour, giving them an air of mystery. Here, it seems more like laziness.  

The music sounds as if the makers got a discount on three tunes from the stock soundtrack emporium, and decided to make the most of their bargain basement purchase, by using them in every single scene, regardless of fit. Ennio Morricone, it most definitely is not. And Cavazos certainly doesn’t match up to Sergio Leone in terms of cinematography. Even in the climactic duel, clearly intended to echo a “high noon” gunfight, the scene is edited in a hyper way which would seem better suited to an entry in the Crank franchise. While the aim of a modern take on the spaghetti Western is laudable, this is largely a failure. The end product is closer in appeal to a plate of last week’s soggy pasta than the works of Leone.

Dir: Juven Cavazos
Star: Youlika Skafida, Beau Yotty, Joe Grisaffi, Michael Tula

Sleeping Dogs Lie

★★
“Dogged by issues.”

Account Armando (Cabellero) has made a series of questionable decisions, the two largest of which are: a) skimming from his organized crime connected client, Mr. Nakamura, and b) cheating on his wife Eleni (Giannatou) with his secretary, Luna (Zanella). These both come to a head when Eleni walks in on the pair of them, and the three of them take a long drive to a remote house in the desert, with Armando in the trunk of the car. There, Eleni prepares to extract the access information to the account where he has stashed the ill-gotten gains – an account Luna is rather unhappy to discover was created in her name. However, Armando knows this information is the only thing standing between him and a hole in the desert, so won’t give it up easily. And what, exactly, are Luna’s allegiances? Is she on his side or that or Eleni?

After a satisfactorily intriguing start, this falls apart after Armando breaks free of his bonds, and vanishes into the blackness surrounding the cabin. Far too much of the film thereafter consists of running around in the near darkness, and you’re left peering into the gloom, trying to figure out who is doing what, and to whom. [Low-budget film-makers need to realize that their product is far more likely to be seen on the small screen than a big one, and light/shoot on that basis] Though the problems start earlier, with a script that seems a draft or two short of polished. For instance, Eleni talks at length to Armando about how the foot is the most sensitive part of the body, then drives a nail right through… his hand?

It doesn’t help that the lead actress appears to be operating largely in her second language. What we get here is an object demonstration of the difference between speaking English, which she does perfectly well, and acting in English. It’s the latter which is an issue, and one made all the apparent by a scene or two where she gets to revert to her native Greek. The difference, in a positive direction, is palpable. Maybe it should just have been made entirely in Greek and Spanish?

But the weakness here is mostly the storyline, which relies too much on contrived incompetence necessary to the plot. By which I mean, if the trio had a lick of sense, events would have unfolded in three radically different directions. Eleni, in particular, stops being the intelligent and resourceful woman she initially appears, the one which I was looking forward to seeing, taking her revenge on an idiotic and unfaithful husband. Instead, by the time this ends, with one final twist beyond what is either necessary or plausible, you’ll be hard pushed to muster any reaction beyond a sigh, or possibly a small, marginally derisive snort.

Dir: Konstantinos Kovas
Star: Markella Giannatou, Miguel Angel Caballero, Joanna Zanella

Dead in the Water

★★½
“Becalmed”

My heart sank in the first few seconds, when I discovered that this was a SyFy Original Movie. The really poor CGI, of a ship sailing on the ocean, seemed to confirm that I was in for one of their bottom of the barrel productions. In the end, however, this was… just about okay. Incredibly derivative, to be sure, and that’s not its only problem. Yet it still just about sustained my interest. That’s certainly not always the case for SyFy Original Movies, to put it mildly.

This takes place almost entirely on the not-so-good ship Amphitrite, an eco-warrior vessel engaged in tracking illegal Chinese trawlers. Its engine breaks down, right in the path of an incoming storm. They then pick up a survivor out of the water, who turns out to be infected with… something. Which is why he’s telling the crew, “Kill me… Then kill yourselves.” Needless to say, they don’t quite follow his suggestion. Before you can say “Alien rip-off, they’re moving slowly around the dimly-lit corridors of the ship in search of… something. And before you can say “Thing rip-off,” they’re watching video off the survivor’s phone, and getting paranoid about who among them might, or might not, be infected.

It’s an all-female crew, which is why the film is here, and it’s admirable that no-one explicitly mentions this or makes a fuss about it. They are what they are, seven women who are competent at their jobs – and of course, it’s a reflection of the all-male cast in John Carpenter’s The Thing. The problem is that there isn’t enough effort put into differentiating them, or establishing them as individuals. I’m not certain I could tell you most of their names, or identify them even with a particular characteristic. I’m going to guess the one called “Sparks” was the ship’s engineer. Otherwise, they seemed entirely interchangeable.

The other problem was already mentioned in passing: the remarkable lack of lighting. Look, I get that the ship “lost power”. I understand that your creature budget of 15 South African Rand probably can’t stand up to the harsh glare of daylight. But there is a limit to how much sloth-like meandering along corridors by near-candlelight I can tolerate. And this film reaches that quota inside the first 30 minutes, then keeps right on meandering. Inevitably, the dwindling band of survivors eventually igure out what exactly they are going to do, and how they are going to stop the creature from reaching the all-you-can-infect buffet which is civilization. To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t shy away from the downbeat conclusion of The Thing, though as appears inevitable with SyFy Original Movies, there’s a coda which leaves the door open to a sequel no-one wants or needs.

In the end, the problem is as always: if you steal from the best, you’ll be compared to the best. And Dead in the Water comes up short of The Thing and Alien, by the width of several oceans.

Dir: Sheldon Wilson
Star: Nikohl Boosheri, Christia Visser, Tanya Van Geaan, Bianca Simone Mannie

The Witch Files

★★★
“The Breakfast Coven.”

If John Hughes directed a film about witchcraft, it’d probably end up like this. For you have five stereotypical high-school girls in detention: Brooke the rich bitch (Ziolkoski); Greta the jock (Adrienne Rose-White); M.J. the timid mouse (Robinson); Jules the goth (Flatmo); and Claire the nerd (Taylor), who isn’t actually in detention, just doing a report on it for the school TV channel. [90% of the film is the ‘found footage’ she shoots of subsequent events, a conceit for which I usually don’t have much time… and here is no different, occasionally requiring pretzel-like contrivance.] Jules mysteriously triggers the fire-alarm to get them all out early. After she reveals this no big thing was part of her witchy skills, the other four enthusiastically agree to take part in a ceremony binding them together, into a coven.

At first, it’s remarkably easy: they basically just chant whatever they want, and it shows up. Life becomes a bowl of free designer clothes and undeserved ‘A’ grades. But, inevitably, there’s a price to pay, and the young women start to find that minor physical ailments are accelerating at a highly disturbing rate. [This is nicely tied into the historical portrayal of witches as wizened crones, explained as a result of the magical energy expended] While some of the girls want to stop their dabbling in occult practices, others have become addicted to their new-found powers and refuse to stop. Given the previous binding, this is a problem. Additionally, the town’s past offers a long association with witchcraft, and a recurring pattern of strange events, taking place every seventeen years. As in almost every American high-school horror film since Carrie, this builds to a showdown at a school party.

This over-familiarity is likely the main problem, with both characters and story-line coming over decidedly as nothing you haven’t seen before. Even if you never watched Charmed or The Craft (or Swedish take on the same, The Circle), the tropes in question will be entirely recognizable, and the film offers few if any surprises. Credit is due to the actresses, however, who take their two-dimensional characters and do a good job of bringing them to life. This keeps the film rolling along, when on occasion it threatens to stall out completely. Ziolkoski probably does best, helping the audience understand the allure of mystical power, though the entire ensemble gel together nicely.

In the end though, there isn’t sufficient here to set it apart from those which have gone before. It doesn’t help that the magical battles in the final third are well beyond the capacity of the budget to depict. The optical/digital effects unfortunately mostly feel like they were copy-pasted in from an eighties Full Moon Features project. There is one nice bit of vehicular mayhem, though even there, Final Destination did it better. If you haven’t ever seen a film about teenage girls and witchcraft, you could certainly do a lot worse. But there can’t be many of you out there.

Dir: Kyle Rankin
Star: Britt Flatmo, Holly Taylor, Alice Ziolkoski, Tara Robinson

The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion

★★★
Lucy  in disguise…”

The first in an intended trilogy, this stands on its own reasonably well, balancing between tying up the loose ends and leaving the future uncertain. The heroine is Ja-Yoon (Kim), who begins by escaping from a shadowy, quasi-governmental facility as a raw eight-year-old, despite being hunted by the woman in charge, Dr. Baek (Jo) and her minions. She is found by husband and wife farmers, and they adopt Ja-Yoon, who has no apparent memory of her early life as their own. Ten years later, with Mom suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the farm struggling financially, Ja-Yoon enters a nationwide singing contest. However, the resulting attention brings her firmly back on the radar of Dr. Baek and Nobleman (Choi), the other survivor from that night a decade ago. The not-so-good doctor won’t let Ja-Yoon escape this time.

After a messy opening, which establishes Dr. Baek as someone specializing in giving no damns at all, this certainly takes its time to get going. For most of the first hour and a half, it’s mostly Ja-Yoon and perky best friend Myung-hee (Go) interacting and progressing through the competition. Though when you hear her… ah, let’s just say “startling” and leave it at that, rendition of Danny Boy, you’ll wonder if perhaps she was selected as the Korean version of William Hung. Meanwhile, the villains are hovering nearby in ways which appear so obvious and suspicious, they would be rejected as painfully unsubtle by Auric Goldfinger.

Eventually, even they realize a more direct approach is needed, i.e. Nobleman storming the farmhouse and threatening everyone Ja-Yoon cares about if she refuses to co-operate. This proves successful, and she meekly goes off to see Dr Baek at her new facility. But as the title and the cover both suggest, Ja-Yoon might be quite comfortable, coming to terms with her inner superwoman. The final 30 minutes show her to be not so meek after all. The movie certainly makes up for lost time, with a slew of well-choreographed mayhem, as our heroine goes all Lucy on the asses of everyone within reach, now she’s using more than 10% of her brain. Or maybe all Hanna? For, in many ways, this is a cross between them, with the pseudo-scientific approach of the former, and the “innocent who strikes back” of the latter.

At more than two hours in length, it would probably have benefited from being about half an hour shorter. The entire “talent show” angle could have been covered just as effectively in about five minutes. And if the bad guys has been more direct, instead of opting for lurking and dropping ominous hints, that would have been a major time-saver as well. However, the twist near the end is handled effectively, and the resulting carnage is brutal and effective. I was left with more than slight interest in the next entry. It will hopefully provide more in the action department, and less in the way of poorly-executed exposition.

Dir: Park Hoon-jung
Star: Kim Da-mi, Jo Min-su, Choi Woo-shik, Go Min-si
a.k.a. Manyeo

At Your Own Risk

★★½
“Reality bites.”

This is one of those films where the making-of is probably more interesting than the movie itself. For this was made for a thousand dollars, with the shoot consisting of two cast and two crew members, filming on property belonging to the director’s parents. This is what micro-budget film-making should be about: knowing your limitation, and working within them, so they don’t appear obvious. On that basis,it is s an impressive achievement, for it looks and sounds thoroughly professional, not least in capturing the scale of the outdoor environment in which it operates. Unfortunately, it’s considerably underwritten, and even at a terse 72 minutes, there just isn’t enough going on here.

Taylor (Santos) and Angie (Boylan) are running a struggling PR firm in Las Vegas – matters not helped by the secrets each woman is keeping. However, there is hope, in the shape of a potential new customer (Schroeder). He is running a high-end adventure business which sends customers into the New Mexico desert on a geocaching treasure hunt. But before giving Taylor and Angie the contest, he wants them to go through the process as if they were customers, in order to understand it better. They agree, and head into the wilderness. However, the further they go, the clearer it becomes that not everything about this “experience” is what it seems.

The problem is that for the great bulk of the film you only have the heroines wandering around the desert, from Point A to B… to C… to D… They chat, and the secrets mentioned earlier are revealed. However, we already know about one from the opening scene, and the other is severely lacking in impact. Meanwhile, there’s not enough of an antagonist. It’s clear that they are being watched, yet the observer is thoroughly passive, and all you really have as a result, is a very mild “women vs. nature” story, without sufficient threat to make you genuinely concerned for the safety of the lead characters. Throw in a broken leg, for example, and that might have helped generate the drama and tension which, as is, the film desperately needs.

. I didn’t mind the lead performances. Both portrayals manage to feel like real people, and I wasn’t left hoping a pack of hungry coyotes showed up and ate them. Given they’re on screen for almost every scene in the movie, that’s something of a feat in itself. We eventually reach a final reveal, explaining the reasons behind what has happened, though this provoked not much more than a shrug and a “Huh,” than any shock or awe. Indeed, it’s dragged out to such a point, it feels almost as if the footage was tacked on, purely in order that the film reached feature length. While there’s enough talent here I wouldn’t be averse to seeing what the makers create in future, this remains something I wouldn’t watch on a regular basis – even if condensed to an hour less commercial breaks.

Dir: John K.D. Graham
Star: Helenna Santos, Alexandra Boylan, Jeff Schroeder

Counterfeiting in Suburbia

★★½
“Fake it till you make it.”

High-schoolers Reilly (Albuquerque) and Erica (Wallace) have discovered a way to literally print money, forging hundred-dollar bills. They then use these to buy high-end fashion, and sell these ill-gotten gains on to their schoolmates for genuine cash. The more cautious Reilly wants to stop, but realizes she can do good by helping Karen (Butler), her aunt and guardian, who is in financial trouble. So when Erica is insistent they expand, Reilly goes along with it, and they use the school’s art-class resources to up their game, laundering the fake money through foreign exchange stores. However, this criminal empire comes under threat, after art teacher Tim Sylvester (MacCaull) discovers what they’re up to. Because by chance, he owes a large sum of money to some nasty people, and starts a relationship with Erica, to make sure she’ll keep working for his benefit.  Worse still, the Secret Service have been alerted to the flood of funny money, so are also investigating.

I have… questions. What made R+E get into counterfeiting to begin with? For when the film starts, they’re already printing out the Benjamins on their home printer. And where do you get the special paper? While there have been cases of people using inkjet printers for this purpose, it seems these involved wiping $5 bills, then reprinting them with higher denominations. [Googling to find this out has probably got me on a watch-list…] And while the film makes the point, especially in high-end stores, that most purchases using credit-cards means assistants are less familiar with spotting fake bills, this surely doesn’t apply to currency exchanges? As a credible piece of scripting, this ends up skipping most of the necessary check-boxes, and I doubt it’s based as much on a true story as claimed.

It’s not entirely without merit though. The underlying idea – teenagers gradually getting out of their depth, and not realizing it until they are too far in – is a decent one. The contrast between the two leads is effective as well: Erica is perpetually touting them as being like Thelma and Louise, and is unfazed when Reilly points out how that ends. There’s also a contrast in motives between the girls – though you wonder a bit why they’re friends, given their divergent natures. Reilly is entirely selfless, and is using her illicit income for what she perceives as “good” [though never quite considers the negative implications of her acts]. Erica, on the other hand, is apparently doing it for the thrill or the LOLs, and you’re never sure quite what this loose cannon might do.

By coincidence, this was watched the same weekend as Body of Sin, and the two films are similar. Both focus on two young women of disparate characters, whose decision to team up and go over the border of legality has severe consequences. Both also have severe problems in the script department. Body was perhaps better technically, but this gets the edge – simply for the sheer uselessness of the only sympathetic male character, which may arguably be more feminist than anything the women do. While some way short of great, it just about passes muster, if you’re in an undemanding Netflix mood.

Dir: Jason Bourque
Star: Larissa Albuquerque, Kayla Wallace, Sarah Butler, Matthew MacCaull

Body of Sin

★★
“Diamonds are clearly not forever.”

Erica (Kriis) is an attractive con-artist, who seduces married men in hotels, then drugs and robs them, knowing they’ll never be able to report the crime. She has just brought on an apprentice, Lauren (Patrikios), to learn the dubious trade, watch her back, etc. Their next score turns out to be the jackpot. as they discover the target was carrying a stash of diamonds with a seven-figure value. Absconding with their ill-gotten gains, the pair decide to lay low for a while, and head to Erica’s hideout on the holiday destination of Isabelle Island. They’re disturbed to read news reports that the target turned up dead in the room, and it quickly appears that the owner of the diamonds is closing in on them. But who is the threat? Local policeman, Mike (McCullough), for whom Lauren has a thing? Visiting boat-owner and part-time magician Tom (Berdini), with whom Erica has a fling? Or the creepy bald guy who arrives on the island and appears to be stalking Erica?

The performer who makes the best impression here is Tybee Island in Georgia, playing the role of Isabelle Island. It seems like a very nice place to take a holiday, picturesque and relaxing. Everyone else? Not so much. In particular, you could have Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren, and they’d still struggle to do anything with a script which resembles French lace, in that it’s a lightly-connected series of holes. For instance, when robbing the target, Erica first comes across an empty briefcase, before locating the diamonds in a tube, hidden in the toilet cistern. Inexplicably. she still takes the briefcase – which, of course, turns out to contain a tracking device. For the film’s entire duration, people both good and bad don’t behave in ways that make logical sense, and Creepy Bald Guy is probably the Worst Stalker Ever, though in his defense, there does turn out to be something of an explanation.

The leads are decent enough. There’s a nice contrast between the utterly cynical and untrusting Erica, who believes she’s on some kind of crusade to punish deceitful men, and the more naive and open Lauren, who gradually becomes more appalled, the more she discovers about her partner. I’d far rather have seen this angle exploited, with the two women turning from Thelma and Louise buddies, into vicious competitors, battling each other for the diamonds. Instead, they literally stand around while the (eventually revealed) good guy and villain tussle it out, mano a mano, on the edge of a convenient cliff. No prizes for guessing how that ends. The other thing is, for a film basically predicated on sexual attraction… it’s  tame stuff. Given Kriis bears some resemblance to Penelope Cruz – though she’s Indian rather than Hispanic – this was disappointing. If ever you want proof that technical competence alone is not sufficient to justify a movie’s existence, this should be Exhibit A.

Dir: The Olson Brothers
Star: Elisha Kriis, Ellie Patrikios, William Mark McCullough, Riccardo Berdini

Girls With Balls

★★★★
“Guess a new domain name is needed…”

Lurking behind one of the most cringeworthy titles I’ve ever seen, and a trailer that’s not much better, is a very pleasant surprise. Well, at least if you’re a fan of the “splatstick” genre, mixing over-the-top gore and comedy: Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead is the pinnacle of that genre. I certainly am, and consequently found this a real hoot. Girls volleyball team, the Falcons, are on their way home after their latest victory, when they end up diverted into a small town, populated entirely by inbred rednecks (or the Gallic version thereof). After an encounter in the hotel, they find themselves getting a night-time visit, and are soon being hunted down by the village’s residents. However, the biggest psycho may not be among the locals…

Afonso does a great job in depicting the heroines with broad strokes. You quickly establish the egotistical star player Morgane (Azem), up and coming star Jeanne (Daviot), nerdy M.A. (Balchere), etc. They’re all overseen by their distinctly non-athletic coach (Solaro), who treats them as if they were one big, dysfunctional family. Yet these internal tensions often threaten their literal survival. It was clear to me (if not many reviewers!) that Afonso is parodying the slasher genre: he takes it to such extremes, with the girls bickering over boyfriends even as their pursuers are mere feet away. That’s where this differs from the other “women’s sports team in wilderness peril” movie – yes, it’s a genre… well, there are two – Blood Games, which took itself seriously. He does an equally nice job with the villains. For example, rather than having hunting dogs, there’s one local who pretends to be a dog, playing the sound of hounds baying over a bullhorn.

It’s just one of the many times where this film subverts the audience’s expectations, not least in having heroines with their own set of flaws. Also included there is the country-and-western singer who hitches a ride on the team’s camper van, interrupting proceedings to offer sardonic commentary on proceedings. “The players on this team were all kind of hot”, he sings at the start, going on, “Another thing they have in common, is that they die before the end.” [Is he telling the truth? I won’t say…] Inevitably, of course, there’s a rather dumb scene where the girls use volleyballs to attack their enemies, and the climax doesn’t actually stick in the mind as well as many of the scenes which preceded it. The attack chihuahua, or the headless corpse that Just. Won’t. Die.

If you took this seriously, it would potentially be thoroughly offensive – though it’s entirely equal-opportunity in its approach there. Men, women, gay or straight: no-one here gets out alive. Just, for the love of all that is holy, skip the dubbed version on Netflix, and watch it subtitled. I caught a few seconds before lunging for the remote control, and my ears may still be bleeding.

Dir: Olivier Afonso
Star: Tiphaine Daviot, Manon Azem, Louise Blachère, Victor Artus Solaro