Following a golden run of the festival circuit, Don McKellar’s Last Night is hitting theaters across the country.

Rhombus Media’s Last Night hit eight screens – three in Toronto, two in Vancouver, and one in each of Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal and Ottawa – on Friday, Oct. 23, drawing an average $7,500 per screen on its opening three-day weekend. Smaller centers including Hamilton, Halifax, London and Saskatoon will follow in the next month.

Mark Slone, vp marketing at Odeon Films, says Odeon is going with a heavy grassroots campaign consisting of trailers and posters and is relying on the ink already gathered by Last Night at the festivals to draw audience.

‘The word of mouth has been so strong on the film,’ says Slone, ‘that it made sense to keep the ball rolling and release it now rather than letting it go out of the public consciousness and then start all over again.’

In addition to the numerous festival screenings from coast to coast, Bell Canada jumped on board with the Bell Screening Program for some pre-opening night gigs at universities. The idea is to get the kids on campus talking about Last Night. McKellar attended both Toronto screenings at Ryerson Polytechnic University and York University.

McKellar took the time to make personal appearances and his personality and his presence played a key part in favorable reviews, says Slone.

Last Night is the inaugural film of the Cineplex Odeon Corporation Marketing Fund, an investment fund supporting the marketing of Canadian films.

The film was picked up for American distribution by Lions Gate Films at the Toronto International Film Festival and Rhombus is looking after international sales.

Rhombus’ The Red Violin will unspool in Montreal theaters Nov. 6 and in the rest of Canada Nov. 13.