TVA Films is cautiously rolling out Alexandre Franchi’s well-received The Wild Hunt, which won acclaim at festivals including Slamdance and the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Montreal director’s feature debut will play on one screen in Toronto and two in Montreal on Friday, with plans to expand later. A TVA spokesperson says no concrete dates have been confirmed.

The action drama follows a young man who crashes a medieval ‘live-action role-playing’ game to win his girlfriend back from a charismatic suitor. It was named one of Canada’s Top Ten films of 2009.

Franchi and co-writer/actor Mark Krupa gathered alongside ‘LARPers’ in full costume from the film in Toronto’s Dundas Square earlier this week.

‘The topic of costume play, re-enactment and escapism lends itself to pulling stunts and running around in traffic dressed like Vikings and getting as much attention as we can,’ Franchi said.

The biggest competition at the weekend box office will come from Fox’s Date Night, starring comedy veterans Tina Fey and Steve Carell, out on a reported 3,300 screens.

Also opening Friday:

• Vic Sarin’s family drama A Shine of Rainbows will play on 10 screens in cities including Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg and Toronto via E1 Entertainment. It follows an orphan who is adopted by an extraordinary woman (Connie Nielsen) to the disdain of her husband (Aidan Quinn).

• KinoSmith has the Jordanian drama Captain Abu Raed, about a lonely janitor at Amman’s International Airport who lives vicariously through his brief encounters with travelers. The film, which garnered an audience award at Sundance in 2008, bows at Vancouver’s Fifth Avenue and Ottawa’s ByTowne theaters. It moves to Toronto next week.

• Mongrel Media is opening the Ireland-set horror The Eclipse in Toronto and Vancouver. It follows a widower’s friendship with a horror novelist, after he begins to believe he is seeing ghosts.