The real-life Joe Cinque and Anu Singh. Now a filmmaker who was in the same year at law school as Singh has quietly shot a feature film about the case in Canberra. Sotiris Dounoukos describes Joe Cinque's Consolation, an adaptation of Garner's book that also draws on his own knowledge of the characters, as a psychological drama. It deals with a tragic case that is "shocking and unexpected and strikes at the heart of things we all value and fear". Little-known Jerome Meyer plays Cinque, with Maggie Naouri (Wentworth) as Singh and Gia Carides as Maria Cinque, Joe's mother.

Anu Singh in 1997. Dounoukos expects the $2 million film, which finishes shooting on Saturday, to be controversial when it is released. "You know it's going to happen," he says. "People have conflicting views about events. Following the case ... Helen Garner. Credit:Cathryn Tremain "There's always disagreement and it's in the very nature of the book - the conflicting points of view around what happened and why.

"The film, just like the book, embraces that." Dounoukos, who practised as a lawyer before becoming a filmmaker, co-wrote the screenplay with Matt Rubinstein, another former lawyer. "LIke a lot of people that read the book, I was moved by the way Helen approached the material," he says "There was a real sense of inquiry about not just what happened but in asking why it happened and how it happened it was really a discourse about the nature of community. "And the community it was touching on was one I grew up around - attending the Australian National University as well. So there was a direct connection to it." Dounoukos knew Singh at law school and saw Cinque around but never met him.