The Bloc Québécois has invited MPs and senators from all parties to a special screening of Polytechnique, Denis Villeneuve's film about the Montreal Massacre.

The party will host a screening of the film on Parliament Hill on April 21, in hopes of building support for the federal gun registry. There are currently two bills calling for the abolition of the registry under review.

The Bloc is hosting the screening "to sensitize parliamentarians to the magnitude of such a tragedy, as well as to stress the importance of gun control," according to a statement accompanying an invitation sent out on Tuesday.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe has also asked Suzanne Laplante-Edward — whose daughter Anne-Marie Edward was among the 14 students killed by Marc Lepine at Montreal's École Polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989 — to speak at the event.

Laplante-Edward, who has been a vocal proponent of stricter gun control, will speak to audience members before the screening. However, she noted on Tuesday that she would not actually watch the film herself.

The first film made about the Montreal Massacre, Polytechnique is a fictionalized version of Lepine's rampage through the Montreal school in 1989 and his murder of 14 female engineering students. He then turned the gun on himself. The killings helped pave the way to the creation of the federal gun registry.

Villeneuve's film — released in Quebec in February and in the rest of Canada in March — sparked controversy even before its release, with some criticizing the director for making a movie about the tragic event. Others commended the filmmaker for exploring the traumatic day in a sensitive manner and without judgment.

With files from The Canadian Press