While the Saskatchewan industry hopes a rise in indigenous projects will offset a soft 2005, B.C. remains Western Canada's Hollywood hot spot, and Manitoba and Alberta are basking in an Oscar glow that is making for a busy summer of offshore activity.

"Capote really gave us a leg up," says Manitoba Film & Sound CEO Carole Vivier, of the Winnipeg-shot film that went on to pick up a 2006 best actor Academy Award for Philip Seymour Hoffman. "The film really increased our visibility, particularly among the American independent feature world," she adds.

Capote's success quickly translated into new U.S. projects landing in the province. For the first time in Manitoba's production history, four American features shot between January and April, typically the slowest time of the year.

"We have never had crew working that early and on so many projects, and it was a direct result of Capote," Vivier says.

These films include Miramax's The Lookout, starring Jeff Daniels, Warner Bros.' The Good Life with Bill Paxton and Harry Dean Stanton, and the indie offerings Blue State with Anna Paquin, and You Kill Me, headlined by Ben Kingsley and Luke Wilson, which wrapped at the end of May.

Manitoba saw production volume rise to a record high of $124.6 million in fiscal 2005/06, and the province is on track to reach these levels again this year, says Vivier.

Six MOWs produced by RHI Entertainment (formerly Hallmark) and Peach Arch Entertainment are shooting back-to-back this summer and fall in Winnipeg. The first, Off Road, a thriller about a killer grizzly bear, is currently in production, with David DeCoteau directing and Tyler Hoechlin (Road to Perdition) starring.

Next up will be Maneater, directed by local Gary Yates (Niagara Motel), which shoots at the end of July.

Manitoba's labor tax credit (which offers a base credit of 45% plus 10% available in bonuses) helps make shooting in the province very cost-effective, says Vivier.

"A producer in L.A. saw Capote and thought it looked like a $25-million movie, and when he found out the real budget [$7 million], he was shocked," she recalls. "Producers are recognizing they can get a lot of value on screen here."

Indigenous production is also healthy this summer in Manitoba, with the second season of the Global soaper Falcon Beach (Original Pictures/Insight Productions) underway.

Two more MOWs are on tap for summer shoots: Anagram Pictures and Eagle Vision are in preproduction on a CTV movie about controversial Cree politician Elijah Harper; and The Stone Angel, a Buffalo Gal Pictures adaptation of the Margaret Laurence novel, is expected to begin production in early August.

House Party, a $410,000 half-hour Comedy Network pilot shoots in late July. The potential series is produced by Winnipeg's Farpoint Films and Inferno Pictures, directed by James Genn (Robson Arms), and starring Jay Malone and David Reale.

Vivier says crew availability is the only roadblock to even more production this summer.