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

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'', and the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

World War II

miniseries In the United States, a miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. " Limited series" is ...

'' The Pacific''. He has also written several films. In 2014, he directed episodes five and six of the fifth season of the

series ''

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American Fantasy television, fantasy Drama (film and television), drama television series created by David Benioff and for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of high fantasy novels by ...

'', 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. Owned and operated by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the P ...

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: series finale; 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 attempt to ...

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

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 Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

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

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

camps alive. He attended the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto before graduating from

Ryerson University Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, or Toronto Met), formerly Ryerson University, is a public research university located in Toronto, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District in downtown Toronto, although i ...

'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 History of cinema in the United States, motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private fu ...

's Center for Advanced Film Studies (now the

AFI Conservatory The AFI Conservatory is a private non-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 stor ...

). He has recently identified as

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

and states that it is only one part of his identity: He was part of a loosely affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. 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 for the premium cable channel HBO. The series is set chiefly in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the Prohibition era of the 1920s. The series sta ...

'', '' Six Feet Under'', ''

True Blood ''True Blood'' is an American fantasy Horror fiction, horror Drama (film and television), drama television series produced and created by Alan Ball (screenwriter), Alan Ball. It is based on ''The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', a series of novels ...

'', ''

Dexter Dexter may refer to: People * Dexter (given name) * Dexter (surname) * Dexter (singer), Brazilian rapper Marcos Fernandes de Omena (born 1973) * Famous Dex, also known as Dexter, American rapper Dexter Tiewon Gore Jr. (born 1993) Places United ...

'', ''

'' and '' Queer as Folk''.

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), known as the "Etrog Awards" for sculptor ...

s in 2000 as Best Director of '' The Five Senses'', which was awarded

Best Picture The following is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various films, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Bes ...

. 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

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 Canadian LGBTQ film directors Living people 1962 births Date of birth missing (living people) German-language film directors Canadian gay writers Canadian LGBTQ screenwriters Screenwriters from Toronto Toronto Metropolitan University alumni Canadian people of Polish-Jewish descent LGBTQ television directors Canadian male screenwriters 20th-century Canadian screenwriters 21st-century Canadian screenwriters Gay screenwriters 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people 20th-century Canadian LGBTQ people