London, ON-born Paul Haggis’ Crash may have claimed a major best picture upset over Brokeback Mountain at the 78th Annual Academy Awards, but Alberta is basking in the Oscar glow.

‘Obviously, we’re disappointed to not win best picture,’ admits Murray Ord, partner at Alberta Film Entertainment, executive producer of Brokeback. ‘No question. However, the reality is that all of the focus and publicity on the project does nothing but great things, not only for our company but for the province of Alberta.’

Ord is quick to point out that Brokeback won three of its eight nominations, including original score, best director for Ang Lee and best adapted screenplay. He says that AFE is enjoying an Oscar buzz boom with 11 projects in various stages of development with major broadcasters, including Disney.

Thesp Philip Seymour Hoffman nodded to Canada in his acceptance speech as he included a heartfelt ‘Thanks to Bill Vince’ when he took his best actor trophy for Capote. Lensed in Manitoba and coproduced by Vince’s Vancouver-based Infinity Features, the biopic about In Cold Blood author Truman Capote was up for five nominations, including best picture, winning only the one.

Before the Oscar win, Vince told Playback about the trials of getting the indie film financed by MGM. ‘How do you go to a studio and say ‘I’ve got [director] Bennett Miller, I’ve got [writer] Dan Futterman, and I’ve got Philip Seymour Hoffman in a biopic about a gay writer. Do you want to put up $12 million?’ You won’t even get in the elevator, let alone get a meeting.’

But it was Haggis who stole the Oscar show, also taking the Oscar for best original screenplay with cowriter Bobby Moresco. The writer/director is on fire, having scripted the upcoming Clint Eastwood war epic Flags of Our Fathers and lined up a comedy potentially to be headlined by Jack Nicholson. He’s also in final talks for double duty as producer and helmer on the political drama Against All Enemies, based on the Richard Clarke novel.

‘You get 15 seconds,’ he told this reporter just after Crash debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004. ‘I’ve probably used up 14 of them already. Tomorrow I’ll be ‘Who? What’s he done?”

Meanwhile, David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence was shut out in the best supporting actor and adapted screenplay categories, for William Hurt and Josh Olson, respectively.

In the feature documentary category, distrib ThinkFilm’s Murderball bowed to heavily favored March of the Penguins.