MONTREAL — While making her film about the rise and fall of Cinar CEO Micheline Charest, journalist Francine Pelletier faced an enormous obstacle: silence.

No one currently working at Telefilm Canada, SODEC or any other public institution which dealt with the scandal-ridden Montreal film and animation house would go on camera for La femme qui ne se voyait plus aller (The Woman Who Lost Herself), which opens Friday with a small release in Montreal.

The 52-minute documentary takes a close look at the CEO, who fell from grace amid allegations that her company made millions by making a range of false claims — including using Canadian names for American scriptwriters — in order to collect Cancon tax rebates.

‘It was very difficult. I’ve never had a tougher time. I don’t expect family members to participate, but I thought institutions were duty-bound,’ Pelletier tells Playback Daily. ‘Obviously the film is hitting a nerve.’

Pierre Lampron, SODEC boss from 1995 to 1999, is interviewed, but François Macerola, who directed Telefilm when the Cinar scandal broke in 1999, declined.

Some of those who did agree to be interviewed, including a former freelancer, say using Canadian names on scripts to get tax-credit money was commonplace in the independent production community.

‘I was told by a producer that a lot of people were worried when the scandal broke. I think it’s obvious that Cinar didn’t invent the practice,’ says Pelletier.

No criminal charges were ever laid against Charest or her husband and Cinar cofounder Ronald Weinberg, though the company ultimately paid $27.5-million to federal and provincial tax authorities. Charest died undergoing plastic surgery in 2004.

Once the darling of Quebec’s business community, Cinar made millions producing inexpensive, internationally popular children’s films and TV shows, including Caillou, Arthur and Wimzie’s House, as well as made-for-TV dramas such as Million Dollar Babies and Revenge of the Land.

Although then-heritage minister Sheila Copps ordered an RCMP probe into the company’s alleged illegal activities, it was never completed. The official reason it stopped was that the Cinar issue was settled by the $27.5-million payment.

Copps, who is interviewed in the film, says the inquiry may have been halted because the Liberals feared a probe would have put a spotlight on the whole funding system of arts in Quebec and Canada.

Pelletier is puzzled as to why the RCMP probe didn’t go further. ‘There was no reason why the inquiry should have stopped,’ says the journalist.

Representatives at Telefilm were not available for comment on this story, and calls to SODEC were not returned.

The doc by Productions Virage is distributed by Films En Vue, and is also slated to run in Quebec City.

In other releasing news, Christal Films this week confirmed that it is delaying the release of two films, Erik Canuel’s Cadavres and Truffe by Kim Nguyen. Cadavres will likely be released this fall, rather than in August, and Truffe, which was supposed to be out this month, may hit theaters this summer.

‘We have changed the original release dates, but nothing is final yet,’ a company spokesman says.

The troubled distributor recently dropped the comedy Young People Fucking, which has since gone to Maple Pictures and been pushed back to June.