A violent chapter in Canadian history is heading to the big screen in a top-secret production designed to minimize controversy.

Polytechnique, a film by award-winning producer Don Carmody, dramatizes the Montreal Massacre of Dec. 6, 1989, in which 14 women were killed, and 10 women and four men were injured by deranged gunman Marc Lépine, who then took his own life.

The movie is titled for ??cole Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with L'Université de Montreal, where the tragedy occurred. The movie is in English.

Polytechnique has been filming in Montreal under tight security and a news blackout in recent weeks owing to public sensitivity about the 18-year-old event, which is still fresh in many minds.

No scenes are being lensed in ??cole Polytechnique itself. Other colleges and a studio are standing in for the school.

Producer Carmody, who is behind such hits as the Oscar-winning Chicago and the horror film Silent Hill, declined to give details yesterday when reached by the Star.

"For fairly obvious reasons, we are not doing any press on Polytechnique in advance of the release," he said via email from a movie-location scouting trip.

"The filming has been completed. That's all I'm prepared to reveal at this time."

The movie came out of the shadows yesterday with the announcement by Telefilm Canada, the federal cultural investor, that it is giving Polytechnique $3.1 million in production financing.

That's the largest sum out of the 10 production investments announced yesterday, and close to the $4 million maximum Telefilm can provide. Telefilm spokesperson Douglas Chow called the amount "pretty average" for a movie of this magnitude.

Polytechnique is directed and co-written by Denis Villeneuve, a Quebec filmmaker known for his visual flair. His 2000 film Maëlstrom, which featured a talking fish as a narrator, opened that year's Canadian program at the Toronto International Film Festival.

A Telefilm press release summarizes Polytechnique in a single paragraph: "Between the horror of an unpredictable massacre and shattered destinies, the film unfolds the tragedy experienced by the students attending the school. Through the shattered dreams and the incomprehensible gesture of a killer, Polytechnique lifts the veil on the most tragic event that has occurred in Quebec."

The Internet Movie Database supplies further details, including a 2009 release date, which would mark the 20th anniversary of the tragedy.

Maxim Gaudette, 33, has the role of Lépine. Gaudette was in the cast of Les 3 p'tits cochons (The 3 Li'l Pigs), a comedy smash last year in Quebec.

Other actors include Karine Vanasse, Nathalie Girard, Sébastien Huberdeau and Evelyne Brochu.

Vanasse was the star of last year's Ma fille, mon ange (My Daughter, My Angel), an explicit drama about a woman who leaves her affluent Quebec home to become an online sex worker in Montreal.

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