That night, he flees and hides in the forest where a Greek archaeologist, Athos (Rade Sherbedgia), discovers him and decides to smuggle him out of Poland to his home on a Greek island. Jakob (played as a youngster by a wide-eyed though mostly mute Robbie Kay) sees the moment of his father’s death and of his sister being dragged from the house. He sees over and over the terror in the faces of his parents and sister. Jakob Beer (Dillane) is haunted by images from one day and night in 1942 when World War II invaded his parents’ comfortable cottage on the edge of a forest in Poland. He is a man cut off from life, unable to sustain a first marriage because, as he says, “to live with ghosts requires solitude.” Veteran actor Stephen Dillane skillfully underplays the troubled character, giving him a placid surface beneath which you feel the horror, frustration and anguish churning ever more. The film is an impressive and often quite moving tale of emotional entrapment that will connect with festival and specialty venue audiences. This prevents him from living fully either in the present or the past, and they both run together in his head. The film from writer-director Jeremy Podeswa - the son of a Holocaust survivor - is based on the award-winning novel by Canadian poet Anne Michaels and largely takes place in the mind of a Jewish teacher and writer who can’t shake memories of a terrifying childhood, where he saw from a hiding place in his house his parents murdered and a sister abducted by Nazi soldiers. Canadian director Jeremy Podeswa arrives for the world premiere gala of the film 'Fugitive Pieces' at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, September 6, 2007.

Fugitive pieces anne michaels summary