News flash: Uwe Boll is here to stay. According to his publicist, Bill Wanstrom, the prolific German director who recently challenged his critics to a boxing match (and won) is officially a landed immigrant. I'll explain why this is a fantastic development for the Canadian production community.

I was apprised of Boll's passport status recently while sitting on a couch in a downtown Toronto hotel room. I'd signed up for back-to-back screenings of a pair of his video game adaptations shot in Vancouver - the US$60-million In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Boll's attempt at Lord of the Rings, and the inflammatory "satire" Postal, which attempts to cram a commentary on virtually every strata of American society, budgeted at US$20 million.

One reason why more Boll is desirable is simple economics. Vancouver prodco Brightlight Pictures has acted as service partner on his last six films, dating back to House of the Dead (2003), and is on tap for several more.

An early trailer of Postal hit YouTube and featured an opening scene of two Al-Qaeda pilots arguing over how many virgins they've been promised, prompting a quick call to bin Laden to confirm, before heading straight for a skyscraper. An outraged New York Post labelled Boll a pariah, and, sight unseen, the movie - which as a game is banned in 12 countries - "a towering insult."

Unfortunately, Wanstrom is having trouble figuring out the connection between the DVD player and a cheap TV, which it turns out has no video input. While we wait for the TV to be replaced by an identical one with video inputs, he reveals that critics from the New York Times and the Post saw the full version of Postal on his recent junket to New York. He adds eagerly that the Post wants to screen the film for 9/11 survivors.

Wanstrom is traveling town-to-town somewhat like Robert Preston in The Music Man, with a suitcase full of Boll movies (the other is the $10-million horror film Seed, about a serial killer who defies electrocution and burial to wreak havoc on those who sentenced him), seeking press both good and bad, but above all, distributors.

Through a combination of necessity and invention, Boll works outside of the studio system, financing his movies through a combination of private investment and his own German film fund (which several years ago was pegged at US$47 million), and worrying about who will get them seen and sold after they're made.

That Wanstrom is shilling his wares from a downtown Toronto hotel on Jarvis Street known for its proximity to local hookers is apt. Boll opted for real Romanian prostitutes in a scene with Meatloaf in last year's box-office disaster BloodRayne ($3.6 million worldwide on a $25-million budget) because they were cheaper than actresses. They reportedly got 150 euros each for their services.

Technical difficulties surmounted, Dungeon Siege begins. Fifteen minutes into the two-hour running time (trimmed from three hours plus) Wanstrom asks me what I think. I respond that I'd like to reserve judgment until at least the half-hour mark - that is, if the disc stops skipping.