Canadian director Kazik Radwanski has been used to seeing his short films take second billing to features at local cinemas.

So it’s fitting that Radwanski’s debut feature, Tower, enjoying an exclusive commercial run at The Royal, should feature a different short film before each of the screenings.

And most of the filmmakers will be on hand for the Toronto theatrical screening, as well as Radwanski and his Tower team.

The short film lineup includes Luo Li’s Ornithology, Scott Cudmore’s Bank Account, Evan Morgan’s A Pretty Funny Story, and Canoejacked, by director Jonathan Williams.

Other Toronto-made shorts programmed by College Street Pictures’ Stacey Donen to play at The Royal include Zaheed Mawani’s Three Walls, Many a Swan, by Blake Williams,  and Throat Song, from director Miranda de Pencier.

Radwanski’s Tower bowed at Locarno and had its Canadian premiere at Toronto, before the theatrical run in Toronto from February 22.

The film portrays a single middle-aged man who lives at home with his parents in Toronto and finds a spark of romance with a young woman he meets.

Radwanski and producer partner Dan Montgomery of MDFF Films have among their short film credits their 2007 debut Assault, the 2008 short film Princess Margaret Blvd., and Out in that Deep Blue Sea (2009), which competed in Berlin.

The short film showcase at The Royal follows indie producer Indiecan Entertainment preceding the commercial release of the horror feature Grave Encounters 2 with a screening of Shhh, a 10-minute film by co-directors Shervin Shoghian and Freddy Chavez Olmos.