The third film from the Canadian born writer/director, Jeremy Podeswa, is no less a poignant drama of love and loss as it is a meditation on redemption. Based on the best-selling novel by Canadian poet Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces follows the life of Jakob Beer, a young Holocaust survivor who fled Poland after witnessing his parents’ execution and sister Bella’s abduction.

Bella’s fate is forever unknown, and Jakob is permanently haunted by her lingering voice and apparition. Teaching and writing offer a temporary relief, but the torment of his past still burdens him.

Jakob is incapable of living in the moment, but the same cannot be said of his friends and lovers. They are not characters in his book or phantoms from his past. They eat and breathe and sleep and drink tea. They already know there is no past or present. Jakob must learn there is only now.

Grade: A

Fugitive Pieces releases in select theaters May 2.