Henning Mankell | Library

Column
News

Filming starts for The Man from Beijing

2010-04-28

The 26th of January was the first day of shooting for the German film adaptation of Henning Mankell's novel The Man From Beijing. The Swedish acclaimed actor Michael Nyqvist will play one of the main parts. The Man From Beijing is produced by Yellow Bird's German subsidiary Yellow Bird Pictures and will be shot as a 2x90 minutes TV mini series. Yellow Bird has previously produced the Millennium films based on Stieg Larssons novels, which also starred Michael Nyqvist in one of the leading roles as journalist Mikael Blomkvist.

- We are delighted to work once again with Michael Nyqvist, who is a fantastic actor. We are also glad to be able to provide opportunities for Swedish actors to reach a larger audience by participating in international productions. The Man From Beijing is a large and prestigious production, which both our German company and we have high expectations for, said Ole Søndberg, executive producer at Yellow Bird.

The story in The Man from Beijing starts with a mass murder in a small village in the north of Sweden. When the judge Birgitta Roslin reads about the horrible event she realises that she is related to several of the victims. Unofficially, she starts to dig into the case. The trails lead her both to the US in the 1860's as well as to today's China. Michael Nyqvist plays the part of Birgitta Roslin's husband Staffan. German actress Suzanne von Borsody plays Birgitta Roslin. The films will be shot in Austria, Taiwan and Sweden.

The novel The Man From Beijing was published in Sweden in 2008 and has since been sold to 25 countries, including Germany, the US, the UK and Spain. In Germany - where Henning Mankell is immensely popular - the book has sold in 250,000 copies.

The adaptation of the The Man From Beijing is a co-production of Yellow Bird Pictures in Germany, Yellow Bird in Sweden and Lotus Film, in co-operation with Degeto Film for the broadcasters ARD/Das Erste in Germany and ORF in Austria, with support of RTR Fernsehfonds Austria and Niederösterreich.


	In The Eye of the Leopard, Hans Olofsson travels to Zambia and stays for 20 years until he reluctantly is forced to leave the country when the African struggle for liberation makes it too dangerous for him to stay.


	In Uganda, Henning Mankell is committed to a tv-project, Karibu Africa!, whose primary aim is to devise, produce and broadcast a daily television drama series targeted at teenagers and young adults in an emerging society with the underlying purpose of informing and educating about relevant social issues. Click here to see a teaser of the tv-show Fruits of love. If you want to read more about the project click here.


	Since 1986 Henning Mankell has divided his time between Maputo and Sweden. Here he spends at least six months every year, and works as an artistic leader at Teatro Avenida. Hanna arrives to Lourenço Marques (the name of Maputo until 1975) in the beginning of the 20th century in Memoirs Of a Dirty Angel. Having just buried her husband she leaves the boat in sorrow. Instead of continuing to Australia she puts up at a hotel in the city.


	In 2008 Henning Mankell went on a long awaited journey to Timbuktu - the place where the myth about an Africa that lacks a written language is being crushed. Mankell is also currently writing a novel with the title The Journey to Timbuktu.


	Henning Mankell has a dream that his memory books project about HIV and AIDS one day will be stacked in the new library in Alexandria . Together with PLAN Henning Mankell initiated this project to try to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS issue.


	Guina-Bissau was the first place in Africa Henning Mankell visited. The year was 1972 and the moment he got off the plane he had a curious feeling of coming home.


	In Chimoio Henning Mankell, together with SOS Children's Villages, are building a small village for approximately 100 orphans. For more info go to SOS Children's Villages.


	José Paulo finds a notebook under the parquet flooring at Grand Hotel in Beira, Mozambique, in Memoirs Of a Dirty Angel. On the first page it’s written: Hanna Lundmark Vaz, 1905.


	Somewhere outside the Horn of Africa is where Hannas husband Lundmark gets his final rest in Memoirs Of a Dirty Angel.


	Lovisa af Sundsvall stops to bunker in Algiers, Algeria, in Memoirs Of a Dirty Angel. This is where Hanna and Lundmark gets married before continuing their journey through the Suez Canal towards Lourenço Marques.


	In The Man from Beijing the traces lead back to three Chinese brothers who were kidnapped in Kanton to work as slaves for the railway in Nevada in the 1860's.


	Henning Mankell vistited the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair in 2009. Among other guests were Assia Djebar and Elias Khoury.


	Kanchepuram is the Indian village Henning Mankell has sponsered through the help organisation Hand in Hand


	All the novels about Wallander take place in Ystad. Click here to read more about the Wallander book series. Or here to glance at the BBC Wallander movies. Are you interested in visiting Wallander's Ystad or just finding out more about him, download the application In The Footsteps of Wallander for Iphone and Android here.


	Lovisa af Sundsvall stops in Port Elizabeth in Memoirs Of a Dirty Angel, before continuing her journey home to Sweden and Sundsvall.


	In the novel, The Man from Beijing, Birgitta Roslin travels to Beijing to try to find out what happened in the small village of Hesjövallen.


	In Kennedy's Brain, the archeolog Louise Cantor is working in Athens when she founds out that her son has been found dead in anapartment in Stockholm. She suspects he has been murdered.


	Traces after the dead son Henrik in Kennedy's Brain leads to a secret apartment in Barcelona...


	On the coast of the Italian island Lampedusa, refugees are found dead every day, people who have died trying to make their way to Europe. Click here to read about Henning Mankells play Lampedusa.


	The Shoemaker that appears in Italian Shoes worked for the legendary shoemaker Gatto in Rome.


	The Man from Beijing that partly takes place in London's Soho and Chinatown, begins with a brutal massmurder in a small village in Hälsingland, Sweden.


	In The Dogs in Riga, two dead men in a rescue raft floats a shore on the coast of Skåne. Kurt Wallander leaves Ystad for Riga to solve the case.


	In Copenhagen Henning Mankell's novel The Man from Beijing and the Wallander novel One Step Behind take place.


	Sveg is the place where Henning Mankell was raised. Two years ago a culture centre in his name was opened there. It holds a permanent exhibition about Mankell and his work.To find out go to Kulturcentrum Mankell. Henning Mankells books about the boy Joel takes place in Sveg, as well as the novel Italian Shoes.


	Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm on February 3rd 1948. In the last novel about Kurt Wallander, The Troubled Man, Wallander spends time in Stockholm to try to find out what has happened.


	In the last Wallander novel, The Troubled Man, Kurt Wallander is forced to travel to Berlin to meet with a former CIA agent.


	Sundsvall is the first city Hanna visits in the novel Memoirs Of a Dirty Angel. This is also where she sees the sea for the first time in her life and meets her best friend, Berta, before signing on the steamship Lovisa af Sundsvall – destination Australia.


	Right before Lovisa af Sundsvall enters the Bay of Biscay in Memoirs Of a Dirty Angel, Lundmark asks Hanna to marry him.


	Henning Mankell's play Night Hawks takes place in New York. Inspired by a painting by Edward Hopper Henning Mankell has written a play about working class people in the 50's.


	The course of events in The Man From Beijing travels from Beijing in the far east to San Fransisco in the west.


	I the novel Before The Frost, where the story initially takes place in Jonestown, Kurt's adughter Linda Wallander plays a central part thoughout the plot.


	On his journey with the Beagle, Charles Darwin visited the Galápagos islands. It was there he discovered that the finches appearence were different from one iland to the other. Click here to read about Henning Mankells play Darwin's Captain.


	In Kennedy's Brain Louise Cantor travels to Byron, a small town on the Australian east coast to follow a lead in the hunt for her son's killer.


	In Memoirs Of a Dirty Angel Lovisa af Sundsvall visits a port on the east side of Australia, maybe Perth or Port Adelaide, loaded with timber from northern Sweden.