Kenneth Branagh to Direct Film Adaptation of Henning Mankell's Italian Shoes

Henning Mankell may be best known to American audiences as the author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, but he has also written a number of stand-alone crime novels as well as literary fiction. One of these latter books, Italian Shoes, first published in 2006, is being adapted for film, and in a possibly not so strange twist, Kenneth Branagh — who plays the small town Swedish police inspector in the made-for-television adaptations of the Wallander books — is set to direct it.

In Italian Shoes (Swedish title: Italienska skor), a devastating mistake drove Fredrik Welkin into a life as far as possible from his former position as a surgeon, where he mistakenly amputated the wrong arm of one of his patients. Now, many years later, he lives in a frozen landscape. Each morning he dips his body into the freezing lake surrounding his home to remind himself he’s alive. However, Welkins’s icy existence begins to thaw when he receives a visit from a guest who helps him embark on a journey to acceptance and understanding.

(Source: Variety.)