Montreal will get a taste of the Yung Chang doc Up the Yangtze on Friday, following its hot run in Toronto and Vancouver, where it has generated nearly $100,000 to date on only two screens.

The picture was, at first, not expected to be released elsewhere in Canada but, flush with success, another three prints have been struck so that it can expand next week to cities including Ottawa and Calgary, followed by Victoria. A fourth French-language print is ready to go in March.

‘Initially, we could afford only three prints…but with its box-office earnings we’re breaking even on our investment,’ producer Mila Aung-Thwin of Montreal’s EyesteelFilm (Chairman George) tells Playback Daily. Yangtze is co-distributed by KinoSmith Films and the National Film Board.

He says the combination of good press, good reviews and captivating subject matter is what’s keeping Yangtze alive in theaters. The film examines how China’s Three Gorges Dam project has affected a peasant family living along the Yangtze River.

The film rang in $56,355 after 13 days at the Cumberland in Toronto — after having set a record for biggest opening weekend on one screen for a Canadian doc — and nearly $33,000 after six days at The Ridge in Vancouver, putting its per-screen average on the high side of $30,000.

The filmmakers have been getting help from schools and actual audience members in distributing posters, postcards and flyers. The movie also has a Facebook group.

‘Our audience is not passive…they want to discuss the film afterwards and help get the word out — even donate money for the family,’ says Aung-Thwin.

Yangtze will be joined by numerous other small releases on Friday, including the Oscar-nominated documentaries War Dance and Taxi to the Dark Side, both handled here by Seville Pictures. Dance and Taxi, up for best documentary feature at Sunday’s Academy Awards, will bow at The Royal theater in Toronto.

Seville will also debut the foreign title Caramel, a romantic comedy from Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, at Toronto’s Cumberland.

Among French titles is the thriller Le serpent, playing on 10 screens in Quebec through Christal Films, while Alliance Vivafilm will bow the adventure doc La rivière aux castors, from France’s Philippe Calderon, on three screens.

The dramedy Charlie Bartlett, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Hope Davis, opens on 92 screens, including 28 French, through Equinoxe Films, opposite the Jack Black comedy Be Kind Rewind, which bows on 61 screens via Alliance Films. Rewind will get 800 screens in the U.S. through New Line, while Bartlett will play in 1,100 theaters via MGM.

The other new U.S. release for the week is the ensemble drama Vantage Point, starring Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker and Matthew Fox, handled here by Columbia Pictures.

Upcoming DVD releases on Tuesday include François Girard’s Silk from Vivafilm. The period drama, about the affair between a silkworm merchant and a Japanese mistress, recently picked up five Genie nominations. It opened on 250 screens in Japan on Jan. 18 and had grossed close to $2.5 million after two weeks. Silk‘s performance at the Canuck box office was disappointing, with the $35-million feature making $800,000 after four weeks.

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This story has been corrected. The per screen is above $30,000, not $5,000 as originally reported.