Film to dramatize Montreal Massacre

An event that burned itself into the consciousness of a whole generation of engineers is now to be the subject of a film.
Award-winning film director Denis Villeneuve, of Quebec is dramatizing the massacre of 14 female engineering students at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in 1989.
The film is called Polytechnique. Filmed in French, it is being funded to the tune of $3.1 million by Telefilm Canada, and will be distributed by Remstar. It is due to be released in 2009 and stars Maxim Gaudette, Karine Vanasse and Nathalie Girard. Co-writer with Villeneuve is Jacques Davidts.
Marc Lepine was the gunman who entered the Ecole Polytechnique on December 6 in the afternoon, armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife. Arriving at a classroom where some engineering students were making a presentation, he told the women to go to one side. Shouting that he was “fighting feminism,” he shot the nine women and then went on a rampage through the school, murdering and wounding others before he eventually shot himself. In total he killed 14 females, and wounded 10 others and four men — the vast majority of the victims being engineering students.
The event is memorialized on the anniversary every year as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Many engineering schools in Canada hold annual ceremonies to remember the victims.
Villeneuve was born in 1967 in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. His previous films include the award winning “Maelstrom” (2000) and “120 Seconds to Get Elected” (2006).