UKactors Rosamund Pike and Stephen Dillane will take key roles in Canadianfilmmaker Jeremy Podeswa's Fugitive Pieces, the long-gestating project to be produced by Robert Lantos'Serendipity Point Films with Athens-based Cinegram SA.

Croatianstalwart Rade Serbedzija is also cast in a lead role.

Basedon the Orange Prize-winning 1997 novel by Anne Michaels, the $9.5m productionweaves together the stories of two men from different generations whose livesare transformed by the Holocaust. Shooting dates are not firm as Podeswa andLantos continue to cast two other key roles. Delivery is set for Spring 2007.

It'sa long-awaited return to features for Podeswa, who has been directing suchhigh-profile television series as Six Feet Under and Queer As Folk since 1999's The Five Senses. His other feature credit is 1995's Eclipse.

Pikerecently starred opposite Keira Knightley in Pride And Prejudice and Johnny Depp in The Libertine while Dillane, an acclaimed theatre actor, was thelead in Michael Winterbottom's Welcome To Sarajevo, played Harry Vardon in last year's Disney hit TheGreatest Game Ever Played and LeonardWoolf in The Hours.

Serbedzija has appeared indozens of films from Dusan Makavejev's Manifesto to Mission: Impossible 2.