Montreal: Award-winning writer/director Denis Villeneuve is set for a return to filmmaking after a six-year absence with two projects – an adaptation of a popular play and a retelling of the 1989 massacre at L’École Polytechnique.

Villeneuve, who swept the 2000 Genies and Jutras with his existential romance Maëlstrom, says his time away from filmmaking was a kind of self-imposed exile. ‘I don’t want to sound pretentious,’ he says, ‘but Maëlstrom didn’t go deep enough for me. It didn’t go deeply enough into the characters.’

He says he wrote a few scripts after Maëlstrom, but promptly tossed them when they weren’t up to snuff. ‘I had to stop working in cinema for a while. I felt I had to learn to write better scripts.’

Villeneuve has since adapted Incendie, the play by Montrealer Wajdi Mouawad. Villeneuve says he was ‘shaken’ when he saw the play two years ago, and, along with producer Luc Déry of micro_scope (Familia), secured the film rights last year. The plot involves a man’s search for answers to his complicated family history after his mother dies.

‘It was a big shock to see this play,’ says Villeneuve. ‘Honestly, it’s a masterpiece. I was totally gripped by it. I’ve never seen a play where I forgot that I was actually watching one.’

Villeneuve also plans to direct and is co-writing, with Jacques Davidts, a feature about the massacre of 14 women at Montreal’s L’École Polytechnique – contentious territory that will undoubtedly raise eyebrows.

‘I know this subject causes a lot of pain,’ Villeneuve says. ‘I feel a big responsibility and privilege to be bringing it to the screen.’

He cautions that this will ‘not be a typical murderer portrait. We are trying to make a social portrait of the period. What was the effect of this incident on Quebec society? As well, we’re going to have to deal with the relationship between men and women – you can’t get away from that.’

The idea for a film about the shooting was not his, but the brainchild of actress Karine Vanasse (Emporte-moi, Séraphin). At a memorial for the women killed in the massacre, Vanasse gave a reading in their honor and, says Villeneuve, was so moved by the experience that she began to discuss the idea for a film.

Though the killings have inspired a great deal of journalism, filmmakers have understandably shied away. (Witness the brouhaha surrounding Karla.) Vanasse approached Remstar and producer Maxime Rémillard (Elles étaient cinq), who liked the idea and approached Villeneuve.

‘I knew right away that this was a challenge I wanted to take on,’ he recalls.

Despite the recent successes of Quebec’s cinema, Villeneuve adds the surprising confession that he sees no role models in older generations of Quebec filmmakers.

‘If you’re a documentary filmmaker in Quebec, you have Pierre Perrault to look to. If you’re in animation, you have Norman McLaren. But there really isn’t anyone here that I’d want to follow,’ he says. ‘It’s very painful. We have no fathers in Quebec. We don’t have anyone on the level of a Lars von Trier or Wong Kar-wai here in Quebec.’