Montreal: La Belle bête, the first adaptation of a novel by acclaimed Quebec writer Marie-Claire Blais, has wrapped in Montreal. The film, also written by Blais, centers on a mother who favors her son while rejecting her daughter.

Appearing are Caroline Dhavernas (Wonderfalls), David La Haye (La Vie avec mon père) and Marc-André Grondin (C.R.A.Z.Y. and one of Playback’s 2005 10 to Watch), with Karim Hussain (Subconscious Cruelty) directing.

Acting vet Carole Laure plays the tormented mother, who has a near-incestuous relationship with her cherished son (Grondin), while abusing her alienated daughter (Dhavernas).

The $1.2-million La Belle bête is coproduced by Hussain, Anne Cusson and Julien Fronfrede of Screen Machine and executive produced by Michael Mosca and Lyse Lafontaine of Equinoxe Films, with Equinoxe distributing in 2006.

‘Blais approached us about adapting her work,’ explains Fonfrede. ‘She had seen Subconscious Cruelty and really liked what Karim had done. She saw us as kindred spirits, given the kind of twisted poeticism she saw in that feature. Of course, we were very interested. We really only had one condition, and that was that Blais adapt her own book for the cinema. We really wanted her to be a big part of the creative process.’

Blais was buoyed by workshopping her script at the prestigious Equinoxe Film Lab in Paris (not associated with Montreal’s Equinoxe). La Belle bête was one of only 15 scripts chosen from hundreds of finalists, allowing Blais to polish her screenplay with professional advice in Paris in June.