After two weeks in theaters, the first film about the Dec. 6, 1989 murder of 14 women at a Montreal engineering school remains at the top of the Quebec box office.

As of Friday, Polytechnique drew $510,366 in ticket sales. For the week of Feb. 6-12 the film was ahead of both Taken and He’s Just Not That Into You, according to box office tracking firm Cineac.

Shot in both French and English, Polytechnique‘s 30 French copies pulled in $317,739 its first weekend out, for a per-screen average of $10,591. The five English-language copies generated only $8,334 at the cash register, for a per-screen average of $1,667.

The strong box office was no surprise. Director Denis Villeneuve and star Karine Vanesse seemed to be on the cover of every newspaper in the province in the week leading up to the film’s release. And with the exception of a biting critique in Montreal’s The Gazette by Brendan Kelly — who blasted the film for its lack of social analysis and argued it shouldn’t have been made in the first place — the Quebec media has been universally positive about the black-and-white film.

Alliance Vivafilm was extremely careful about the rollout, says president Patrick Roy. ‘We wanted to control the message and ensure that it was respectful and sober. We wanted to explain what we were doing. We didn’t want it to turn ugly.’

After much deliberating, the distributor chose to go with an understated poster featuring Vanesse’s face that didn’t hint at the film’s violent content. Vivafilm also ensured the film’s Montreal premiere was low-key: ‘We didn’t want to have a glitzy event. It couldn’t be a joyful occasion,’ says Roy, who has been working on the film for the past four years.

Like so many Quebecers, Roy has a personal connection with the murders, which took place at the University of Montreal’s École Polytechnique engineering school. ‘I was a student there. If I hadn’t switched to another university, I would have finished my engineering degree with that group of students. I could have been there at the time,’ he says.

The Dec. 6 tragedy hit the province’s close-knit society hard. A few days after the massacre, The Gazette called Montreal a ‘City of Tears.’ Not only did 14 of this province’s ‘daughters’ die, on shooter Marc Lepine’s list of other women he wanted to kill were a number of prominent women including then labor leader Monique Simard, now head of the French program at the National Film Board, and journalist Francine Pelletier.

‘There was a great deal of controversy here about the film. It was initially refused funding. Many questioned whether it should have been made at all. But once they see it, most say it was a film that needed to be made,’ says Roy.

What has surprised Roy the most about the coverage of Polytechnique has been the emotional reaction of the Quebec media. ‘It seems to be so fresh in their minds. And for those who were there and covered it, it was something that had a great impact on their lives.’

Roy is anxious to see how the film will do in English Canada once it is released. ‘People’s perception of the film here is colored by the fact it happened in Quebec. It will be interesting to see how people will react who have a bit more distance,’ he says.