Five months after opening in Quebec, Christal Films’ Congorama is expanding to English Canada, albeit cautiously. The comic drama opens on one screen each in Toronto and Vancouver Friday — venturing out of Quebec after a lengthy run that has grossed roughly half a million dollars since October.

Written and directed by Philippe Falardeau, Congorama stars popular Euro-thesp Olivier Gourmet (L’enfant) as an underachieving Belgian inventor who travels to Quebec to trace his natural parents. The film has been praised by critics and was named one of Canada’s Top Ten films of 2006 in the annual TIFF poll.

It arrives alongside significant U.S. releases including the Paramount/DreamWorks comedy Blades of Glory, the Disney CG toon Meet the Robinsons, Odeon Films’ well-reviewed South Korean horror film The Host, and the Danish Oscar contender After the Wedding, handled here by Seville Pictures.

Back in Quebec, Christal is releasing the French-language comedy A vos marques… party!, starring Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin as a rebellious teenager, on 77 Quebec screens in cities including Montreal, Gatineau, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières.

Meanwhile, the documentary Radiant City — another of Canada’s Top Ten, from director Gary Burns and CBC Radio’s Jim Brown — opens Friday via Odeon in Toronto and Calgary on one screen apiece, and in Vancouver on April 6. The film, which explores life in Canada’s booming suburban municipalities, played at TIFF last year and was awarded a special jury prize at VIFF.

Coming up, Toronto director Jordan Barker’s thriller The Marsh, starring Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker, is set for an April 6 release in Canada via Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution. The film debuted at Cannes last spring and is distributed internationally by Sony Pictures.