Four-year-old children who visit elderly people every day for six weeks in their nursing home for discussions, activities and games: this is the concept of the documentary series Une vie d'écart . Four 52-minute episodes will soon be broadcast on Canal +. The program, an adaptation of an English documentary, was shot in an Ehpad in Issy-les-Moulineaux, in the Paris suburbs, before the Covid-19 health crisis.
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"Children and the elderly have a lot in common. Elderly people have a lot of time to offer to children who need it because their parents work and are very busy all the time," notes Caroline Delage, the producer of the documentary, at the microphone of Europe 1 Friday morning.
Discussions without taboos
"At four years old, children have no barriers, no filters. They don't see old people as old people, don't see wrinkled skin, infirmity. They just see friends. There is this contact. physical which is so lacking in the elderly in nursing homes and which is nevertheless fundamental. Incredible and moving links have been created. Children talk to them about death, about rather difficult subjects, without taboos. And obviously that does not scare people elderly, ”she continues.
The producer recounts seeing the behavior of some residents change and tells the story of Robert, 95, the only man on the panel and the children's darling: "he doesn't like children and says he never had any. . In fact, he had two daughters but he did not raise them so he forgot. He finally starts to love children at 95 years old. "
Older people who are hardly visible on television
The documentary series also highlights the extreme loneliness of nursing home residents. "We deprive them of a link with the rest of society, but we also deprive ourselves of what they can bring us", regrets Caroline Delage, who also created the program Au tableau , where children questioned personalities and in particular politicians.
"Showing older people on TV is very scary for broadcasters. While programs with older people are doing very well in terms of audiences in other countries," she adds.