Through no fault of our own, my conversation with Robert Cuffley turns to Jessica Alba.

These things happen when two or more men are in a room.

Specifically, the Calgary-based filmmaker is marvelling at the marketing for Good Luck Chuck -- and the campaign's signature image of Alba dreamily cradling a melting ice cream cone.

"It has an awesome movie poster," Cuffley says. "It wasn't garbled with text or eight faces. It was just Jessica Alba. They did a series (of posters) too. I wish we had the budget for that."

This isn't the sort of commercial-minded admission you expect from a Canadian filmmaker. Nor is his desire to have his films seen by the masses. Yet Cuffley makes no apologies.

"I'm a very proud Albertan and Canadian, but you can't just think about what people in Nova Scotia are going to think (of the movie) -- you need to think about Detroit and Denmark.

"My first film (Turning Paige) did really really well, but 12 people saw it. It's so freaking hard to get a movie made in this country that you want the catharsis that comes from people seeing it."

It's a goal Cuffley would appear to be coming closer to attaining. His film Walk All Over Me -- which has its gala premiere at the Calgary International Film Festival tomorrow -- was bought by Harvey Weinstein (the mogul behind Pulp Fiction, among countless others) after its bow at the Toronto International Film Festival.

"I actually thought it was a joke at first. It's nice news. We're still waiting to hear the details, but it's pretty cool." He has yet to meet Weinstein -- the closest he came at TIFF was at a party where the Hollywood chieftien was talking to (who else?) Jessica Alba.

"Before I could introduce myself, he was gone," Cuffley recalls. "But I'm sure I'll meet him sometime." In the meantime, he is concentrating on tomorrow's gala premiere of Walk All Over Me, which stars Leelee Sobieski as a small-town girl named Alberta, who takes on the dominatrix identity of a girlfriend (Alberta's Tricia Helfer, who will attend the presentation and in a phone interview with Sun Media calls Cuffley "a huge talent").

Likewise, Cuffley lauds his two leading ladies and the seismic impact their involvement has already had on his career currency.

"(This film) marks a shift, largely because of the cast -- their willingness to be in it and their willingness to promote it, which is so nice ... On bigger sets, everyone is couriered around and pampered, but on this everyone gets the gist -- this is a small movie and they feed off my enthusiasm for the project."

Everything is relative, of course; this "small movie" still represented a huge jump for Cuffley --its $3-million budget is triple that of his last film. Yet it still wasn't enough to keep Walk All Over Me in the city -- rather, it filmed in Winnipeg, despite the fact Cuffley, his producer, editor, co-writer and composer are all Calgarians.

The reason? Alberta simply isn't financially competitive in luring -- or keeping -- film productions.

"I want to shoot here, but even the other day Nova Scotia upped its tax credit ... (Walk All Over Me) took three years to write and film. You want your money on screen and every buck counts."

Does that mean Cuffley could be Nova Scotia-bound for his next project? He certainly doesn't rule it out. As for what the movie is about, he cheerfully refers to it, in Hollywood lingo, as a "rom-com" -- short for romantic comedy.

"The term 'romantic comedy' freaks me out, but 'rom-com' rolls off my tongue ... We're calling it a perverted romantic comedy."


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