Jeremy Podeswa (born 1962) is a Canadian film and television director. He is best known for directing the films '' The Five Senses'' (1999) and ''

Fugitive Pieces ''Fugitive Pieces'' is a novel by Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels. The story is divided into two sections. The first centers around Jakob Beer, a Polish Holocaust survivor while the second involves a man named Ben, the son of two Holoc ...

'' (2007). He has also worked as director on the television shows '' Six Feet Under'', ''

Nip/Tuck ''Nip/Tuck'' is an American medical drama television series created by Ryan Murphy that aired on FX in the United States from July 22, 2003, to March 3, 2010. The series, which also incorporates elements of crime drama, black comedy, family dra ...

'', ''

The Tudors ''The Tudors'' is a historical fiction television series set primarily in 16th-century England, created and written by Michael Hirst and produced for the American premium cable television channel Showtime. The series was a collaboration among ...

'', ''

Queer as Folk ''Queer as Folk'' may refer to: * ''Queer as Folk'' (British TV series), 1999–2000 * ''Queer as Folk'' (American TV series), a 2000–2005 American and Canadian version of the UK series ** ''Queer as Folk'' soundtracks, soundtrack albums from ...

'', and the HBO World War II

miniseries A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format ...

'' The Pacific''. He has also written several films. In 2014, he directed episodes

five 5 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 5, five or number 5 may also refer to: * AD 5, the fifth year of the AD era * 5 BC, the fifth year before the AD era Literature * ''5'' (visual novel), a 2008 visual novel by Ram * ''5'' (comics), an awa ...

and six of the fifth season of the HBO series ''

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of '' A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the fir ...

'', earning a

Primetime Emmy Award The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...

nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for the latter episode. He returned the next season, directing the

season premiere A season premiere is the first episode of a new season of a returning television show. In the United States, many season premieres are aired in the fall time or, for mid-season replacements, either in the spring or late winter. In countries su ...

and the second episode. He also directed the

as well as the

season finale A season finale (British English: last in the series; Australian English: season final) is the final episode of a season of a television program. This is often the final episode to be produced for a few months or longer, and, as such, will try to ...

of the seventh season. In 2021, he directed episodes of the TV series adaptation of '' The Mosquito Coast'' and the miniseries ''

Station Eleven ''Station Eleven'' is a novel by the Canadian writer Emily St. John Mandel. It takes place in the Great Lakes region before and after a fictional swine flu pandemic, known as the "Georgia Flu", has devastated the world, killing most of the popul ...

''.

Biography

Jeremy Podeswa was born in 1962 in Toronto, Ontario. He is Jewish, and his

Polish Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...

father, a painter, was the only one of his immediate family to make it out of the German

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

camps alive. He attended the

Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto The Anne & Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto (), also known as CHAT and TanenbaumCHAT, is a private Jewish high school in Toronto, Ontario, established in 1960. As of 2012, it was the largest private high school in Canada. A se ...

before graduating from Ryerson University's Film Studies program"Jeremy Podeswa"
Canadian Film Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16 August 2011 and the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Lead ...

's Center for Advanced Film Studies (now the

AFI Conservatory The AFI Conservatory is a private not-for-profit graduate film school in the Hollywood Hills district of Los Angeles. Students (called "Fellows") learn from the masters in a collaborative, hands-on production environment with an emphasis on ...

). He has recently identified as

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the l ...

and states that it is only one part of his identity: "...my sexual orientation is one element among others. I believe that the experience of belonging to a minority, whether tied to sexual orientation, religion or race, changes your perspective you can have on of our environment and things in life. My orientation is only one part of me: I am Jewish, my parents are immigrants, I am North American. All these things and many others make what I am. It would be very restrictive, even a mistake, to say that my work or any other filmmaker’s can be reduced to the dimension of sexual orientation." He was part of a loosely affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the

Toronto New Wave The Toronto New Wave refers to a loose-knit group of filmmakers from Toronto who came of age during the 1980s and early 1990s. History Atom Egoyan, John Greyson, Ron Mann, Bruce McDonald, Don McKellar, Peter Mettler, Jeremy Podeswa and Patricia ...

. In 1983, 21-year-old Podeswa used his student loans to make his first short film, titled '' David Roche Talks to You About Love'' —a 22-minute performance about a gay actor and his views on love. The aspiring director then took jobs as a production assistant, assistant editor and a publicist before he started directing his own films. During the eighties and nineties when he just started his career, he made Canadian indie shorts and features such as The Five Senses, Eclipse, and Fugitive Pieces (2008), loosely based on a novel by Anne Michael, which was awarded the opening night slot at the 2007 International Film Festival. The film has since received critical acclaim. Podeswa has recently made a name for himself directing critically acclaimed and commercially successful television shows, such as

Boardwalk Empire ''Boardwalk Empire'' is an American period crime drama television series created by Terence Winter and broadcast on the premium cable channel HBO. The series is set chiefly in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the Prohibition era of the 1920 ...

, Six Feet Under,

True Blood ''True Blood'' is an American fantasy horror drama television series produced and created by Alan Ball. It is based on '' The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', a series of novels by Charlaine Harris. A reboot is currently in development. The ser ...

Dexter Dexter may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Dexter, the main character of the American animated series '' Dexter's Laboratory'' that aired from 1996 to 2003 * Dexter, a fictional character in the British web series ''Diary of a Bad Man'' * Dext ...

and

Awards

Altogether, Jeremy Podeswa has won 20 awards while having 34 nominations for his expert works. Podeswa was given two

Genie Award The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978; also known as the "Etrog Awards," for sc ...

s in 2000 as Best Director of '' The Five Senses'', which was awarded Best Picture. In addition, he won an award at NewFest: New York's LGBT Film Festival for the Best Short. Podeswa won an award at the Newport Beach Film Festival in 2008 for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. In addition he won Best Short at the San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. His most recent accomplishments occurred in 2015 and 2018, where he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Direction of a Drama Series with ''Game of Thrones''.

Filmography

Television

* List of Podeswa's directed television shows

Films

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Podeswa, Jeremy AFI Conservatory alumni Canadian television directors Film directors from Toronto Best Director Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners LGBT film directors Living people 1962 births Date of birth missing (living people) German-language film directors Canadian gay writers Canadian screenwriters Writers from Toronto Toronto Metropolitan University alumni Canadian people of Polish-Jewish descent LGBT television directors