David Cronenberg's AHistory Of Violence won three prizesincluding Best Picture as the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) unveiledits picks for 2005.

Toronto-based Cronenberg wasnamed Best Director. while the film itself was deemed Best Canadian Film -despite the fact it was fully-financed by US studio New Line and does not qualifyas Canadian by any internationally-agreed standards.

It's the second time in asmany weeks that History Of Violencehas been claimed by Canadian adjudicators as one of their own. On December 12,it was included in Canada's Top Ten, a celebration of Canadian cinema organizedby the Toronto International Film Festival Group.

In an interview with ScreenDaily, Cronenberg said he considers the film a US-Canadaco-production creatively if not financially.

"There was a huge creativeinput on both sides: I directed it, Howard Shore did the music, my editor[Ronald Sanders] edited it, Carol Spier designed it, we shot it here with aCanadian crew' If it had been a UK-Canada co-production nobody would becomplaining because those films have been recognized as Canadian for years."

He pointed to the example ofhis own film Spider, adding "AHistory Of Violence is not 100%Canadian but not too many [films] in English-Canada are."

As for the other TFCAfinalists, Bennett Miller's Capote alsowon three prizes: Best Performance, Male for Philip Seymour Hoffman, BestSupporting Performance, Female for Catherine Keener and Best First Featureaward for Miller.

Laura Linney won BestPerformance, Female for The Squid And The Whale while Paul Giamatti won for Best SupportingPerformance, Male for Cinderella Man. Giamatti won the TFCA's Best Performance, Male prize last year for Sideways.

Squid And The Whale writer/director Noah Baumbach won the BestScreenplay prize while Best Animated Feature went to Nick Park's and SteveBox's Wallace & Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, Best Foreign-Language Film went to Zhang Ke Jia's TheWorld and Best Documentary Featurewent to Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man.

The TFCA also issued aspecial citation to actor Andy Serkis "for his unprecedented work helping torealize the main character in King Kong".

In addition, the grouppresented its annual Clyde Gilmour Award, named for the late Canadianjournalist who pioneered film criticism in the country, to film historian RobinWood this year for his "essential contributions to the understanding of film asan art form and as a social and political force".