Amédée, a young stuntwoman, returns to the town where she was born, by the sea. She has been injured, and must give up her career. She meets up again with old and at times worrying acquaintances. In both the town and in her, Amédée observes disturbing changes.

Started by the artists Virginie Barré, Romain Bobichon, and Julien Gorgeart, the series La cascadeure/The Stuntwoman is a group project involving the artists Pierre Budet, Camille Girad & Paul Brunet, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Florence Doléac,

Olivier Nottelet, Bruno Peinado, and Yoan Sorin.

The initial reference is the novel Saga (1997) by Tonino Benaquista. In it, a private television channel has to produce a series to comply with the French creative dictates imposed by the powers-that-be. By thinking only of cutting costs, the channel decided on a sitcom filmed with strictly minimum funding, which it would air in the middle of the night. Quite sure that it will have an extremely small audience, it takes on four unemployed scriptwriters to write the screenplay: Louis, a has-been, Jérôme, an out-of-sorts sci-fi fan, Mathilde, who writes sentimental novels, and Marco, a beginner (the narrator).

It is hard not to draw a parallel, with regard to the series made by a group of artists based permanently or temporarily in Douarnenez, between the forgotten Saga scriptwriters and the faraway artists of Finisterre.

So the La Cascadeure project is a collective work, written, directed, edited and made by a group of visual artists who are fans of series, the fantastic and the supernatural. From the strange situations presented by Virginie Barré to the sombre drawings of Olivier Nottellet, from Lili Reynaud Dewar’s performances to the pop aesthetics of Bruno Peinado’s sculptures, from the ethereal watercolours produced by Julien Gorgeart and Camille Girad & Paul Brunet to Romain Bobichon’s paintings, and from Florence Doléac’s very witty objects to Yoan Sorin’s installations… So many worlds opening up the imagination.

Starting out from a situation and a given geography, the La cascadeure series focuses on a character, Amédée, who returns to the town where she was born after an accident which prevents her of continuing her job as a stuntwoman. Back home, she finds her mother and various acquaintances who, as episode follows episode, become stranger and stranger. Unexplained phenomena, like night falling at any time of day, happen. We duly discover a loaded personal past and a collective history marked by trauma…

With surprising levity, and not without humour, the series gradually plunges into a paranormal—but realistic—world, until it is totally immersed in it. What is thus involved is moving boundaries, alternative worlds, shifts, reversals and things being turned inside out.

Anne Langlois