Jeremy Podeswa has put the finishing touches on Fugitive Pieces, his first feature film in almost a decade, and is looking to screen the long-awaited Holocaust story later this year – at Toronto ‘for sure’ and possibly at Cannes.

‘It would be great to go to Cannes, but it’s all just planning at this point,’ he says, on the phone from Los Angeles, where he’s screening the $11-million picture to make sure the color timing is correct. His previous film, The Five Senses, played Cannes in 1999.

Post-production on Pieces was recently completed at Deluxe Sound & Picture in Toronto. ‘I’m just waiting for the first answer print to come in… it went very smooth,’ he says.

The same cannot be said of the actual shoot, which took place over eight weeks last spring in Greece and Ontario, and which involved filming on the Greek island of Hydra.

‘There were no roads, and no vehicles to transport equipment, so everything had to be carried by hand or by donkey,’ he says. ‘But we had an amazing crew.’

Pieces – which Podeswa adapted from the award-winning novel by Anne Michaels – is the story of a man coming to grips with the tragic repercussions of World War Two, during which he witnessed the murder of his parents by Nazis. The film stars Stephen Dillane (The Hours) and Rosamund Pike (Pride & Prejudice) and is produced by Lantos through his Toronto-based Serendipity Point Films (Where the Truth Lies).

‘What I loved was that it was not a story about war specifically but about its aftermath and tragedy,’ Podeswa explains.

The 45-year-old director, whose credits include Six Feet Under, Rome and Nip/Tuck, has since returned to helming TV shows. He is currently directing episodes of The Riches, a new series for FX Network and Fox Studios, starring British actor/comedian Eddie Izzard (Ocean’s Twelve) and Minnie Driver (Owning Mahowny).

Podeswa, based in both Toronto and L.A., says he has the best of both worlds. ‘In television, your time commitments are limited, which is great, because if you’re also working on films, you need time to be able to nurture and develop them.’

Lantos is working on setting the film’s debut. A release through its Canuck distributor Maple Pictures has not been set.

‘It needs to be positioned well and marketed well, and I hope people will find it,’ says Podeswa.