D Films has picked up the Canadian rights to the buzzed about sci-fi drama Monsters, the first feature from U.K. writer-director Gareth Edwards.

The deal was reached by D Films president Jim Sherry and Laird Adamson, who leads international sales for Magnolia Pictures. Magnolia nabbed North American rights to the film at the recent SXSW film festival in Texas where it was a hit, and is selling Monsters through its genre arm Magnet Releasing.

Edwards also created the special effects for the film, about a U.S. journalist who agrees to escort an American tourist through an infected, quarantined zone in Mexico – where new alien life begin to appear — to the safety of the U.S. border. It stars Scoot McNairy (In Search of a Midnight Kiss) and Whitney Able (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane).

The film is produced by Allan Niblo and James Richardson of U.K.-based Vertigo Films. It was shot in Guatemala, Mexico and the U.S.

Edwards is known for his visual effects work with a BAFTA prize in 2006 for the BBC documentary Hiroshima, and an Emmy nomination for the TV series Perfect Disaster.

D Films also recently acquired the biopic Winnie, and Roller Town, the feature film debut of Halifax comedy troupe Picnicface.