Annie-Soleil Proteau offers a very personal project linked to her roots and acting as family therapy with the documentary series “The house where I grew up”.
The journalist and host, it must be said straight away, still lives on the ground floor of the triplex where she took her first steps. The series of 10 episodes of less than 15 minutes, available on TOU.TV EXTRA, plunges us into a major renovation project, Annie-Soleil not only wishing to stay there for the long term, not to say until the end of her days, but in a more functional and bright environment.
Decompartmentalizing his house, next to the Olympic Stadium, in his beloved Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood is not, however, a simple exercise in renovation. His father Michel, owner of the premises, is attached to what he has arranged with the sweat of his brow.
“It’s not just a reno show, although I do devour those shows. In our case, the renovations are used as a pretext. You see where we were starting from, with my dishwasher in the cellar, ”said Annie-Soleil with a burst of laughter.
“It speaks of my attachment to my roots, of my family’s relationship with my childhood home and of my love for my village, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.”
Annie-Soleil expected to burst into tears when the demolishers disembarked to tear down the walls. On the contrary, everything “became possible” once the work got under way.
Her father felt that she was “undoing her work,” said Annie-Soleil, specifying, however, that he walked through the process.
“The more he saw me badly, the more he pushed me by telling me that he would never come back to live here”, she testified.
It must be said that the divorce of her parents when she was a child nourished her attachment to the house. “My stability came a lot from my grandparents who lived four doors down, and it came from our house, physically, because it’s the only thing that didn’t change in my life.”
The documentary series united the Proteaus, in a way, and “my father now sees it as a tribute: his daughter, yes, she demolished that house in which I had worked with my hands, except that the fact that ‘she chooses to stay means that I had made the right choice for my family at the time ”.
Her friend Imposs also signs the theme song, “Architect of her destiny”, and the entrepreneur who is piloting the work is her childhood friend William “because I am loyal to my world”, she said. passage.
Grieving difficult to do
Annie-Soleil, who is in the “Salut Bonjour” team and who does radio on ICI Première with René Homier-Roy, in addition to piloting the “District 31: people of interest” podcast on OHdio, continues to reflect on the situation of the elderly, in particular all those people who are in CHLSD and whose pandemic has revealed their great fragility.
She proposed last summer the documentary “The last house” – still available on TVA + – presenting the journey of her grandmother Madeleine Proteau, who died in March 2017, mourning which still makes her suffer. Annie-Soleil believes that Quebec must turn to home care and support, as Denmark has done.
“Until I see a real desire to improve the lot of seniors, no matter which party is in power, I will keep thinking and asking questions,” she said.
The first nine episodes of “The house where I grew up” are available in the VÉRO.TV section of TOU.TV EXTRA. The conclusion can be seen on the platform from December 27.