Québec
Quebec is Canada's largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, New Brunswick to the southeast and a coastal border ...
television
series
Series may refer to:
People with the name
* Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series
* George Series (1920–1995), English physicist
Arts, entertainment, and media
Music
* Series, the ordered sets used i ...
Le Soleil
Le Soleil ("The Sun") is the name of several newspapers:
* ''Le Soleil'' (Quebec), a French-language daily newspaper in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, founded in 1896
* ''Le Soleil'' (French newspaper), a defunct daily newspaper based in Paris fro ...
'', 25 August 2012 (accessed 15 August 2020). the
CBC CBC may refer to:
Media
* Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico
* Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster
** CBC Television
** CBC Radio One
** CBC Music
** ...
French-language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in ...
service. Created by dramatist Danielle Trottier, the show has since 2013 been syndicated on France's
TV5Monde
TV5Monde (), formerly known as TV5, is a French public television network, broadcasting several channels of French-language programming. It is an approved participant member of the European Broadcasting Union.
The network is available across ...
network.Fabien «L’Unité 9 ouvre ses portes dès ce soir sur TV5Monde» ("Unit 9 opens its doors from this evening on TV5Monde"), ''Critictoo,'' 28 October 2013 (accessed 15 August 2020). The 169-show series has been one of the most-watched shows in Québec, with ratings of up to two million viewersHugo Dumas «Unité 9 refusé à TVA» rchive ''
La Presse
is a French-language online newspaper published daily in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1884, it is now owned by an independent nonprofit trust.
' was formerly a broadsheet daily, considered a newspaper of record in Canada. Its Sunday edi ...
'', 18 December 2012, (accessed 15 August 2020). for the 44-minute episodes.
Synopsis
Marie Lamontagne, a mother of two, having been convicted for attempted murder, lives in Unit 9 of Lietteville, a federal penitentiary for women.Hugo Dumas «Unité 9: rien à voir avec Karla Homolka» ("Unit 9: nothing to do with
Karla Homolka
Karla Leanne Homolka (born May 4, 1970), also known as Karla Leanne Teale, Leanne Teale and Leanne Bordelais, is a Canadian serial killer who acted as an accomplice to her husband, Paul Bernardo, taking active part in the rapes and murders of at ...
") rchive ''La Presse'', 17 May 2012 (accessed 15 August 2020). As she adjusts to her new life in prison, with the help of other inmates, she learns about their relationships and why each of them was incarcerated, as well as the histories of the prison employees. In this new environment, Marie confronts Normand Despins, the prison director, who has a different conception concerning the rehabilitation of prisoners, and tries to show that everyone has the right to a second chance.
The fictional Lietteville is based on a real
women's prison
Approximately 741,000 women are incarcerated in correctional facilities, a 17% increase since 2010 and the female prison population has been increasing across all continents.Joliette, Québec.
Series development
Danielle Trottier had the idea of making a series on the environment of a women's prison after reading Justice
Louise Arbour
Louise Arbour, (born February 10, 1947) is a Canadian lawyer, prosecutor and jurist.
Arbour was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal for Ontario and a former Chief Pr ...
's 1996 report of the ''Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston'',Louise Arbour, Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston ', Public Works and Government Services Canada, 1996. {{ISBN, 0-662-24355-2. Accessed 10 September 2020. Trottier's study of that report was the initial motivation for her concern over the plight of imprisoned women: "I cried and was angry after reading this report," she recalls. "I knew right away that I had found a good vein, and I haven't stopped reading about it since."Pierre-Étienne Caza, Danielle Trottier: derrière les barreaux d'Unité 9 ', ("Behind the bars of Unit 9", in French), UQAM Entrevues, ''Inter'', Winter 2013, Vol. 11, No. 1 rchived Accessed 10 September 2020. She then spent five years in researching, which included visits to the Joliette women's prison. There she met several prisoners, whom she characterized as “intelligent, sensitive, extremely generous people, in the process of change.”Richard Therrien, Unité 9: sept femmes en prison ' ("Unit 9: Seven women in prison", in French), 17 May 2012. Accessed 10 September 2020.
Series development began in earnest in 2008 with the
TVA
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...
network's filming of two
pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...
episodes. By March 2010 the network had declined to commission more episodes, stating that they preferred targeting a more family-oriented audience. "I came with people who led rather turbulent lives. This wasn't the type of story they were looking for, and they had a perfect right to do so," Trottoir told ''
Le Soleil
Le Soleil ("The Sun") is the name of several newspapers:
* ''Le Soleil'' (Quebec), a French-language daily newspaper in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, founded in 1896
* ''Le Soleil'' (French newspaper), a defunct daily newspaper based in Paris fro ...
''.Richard Therrien, «Unité 9: une journée à Lietteville» ' ("Unit 9: a day at Lietteville," in French rchived, 23 March 2013, Le Soleil. Accessed 13 September 2020. A year and a half later, she and
screenwriter
A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...
- producerFabienne Larouche jointly turned to Radio-Canada to support the production, and gained the go-ahead from that network in January 2012.