Wallander (British TV Series)

Wallander (British TV Series)

Wallander is a British television series adapted from the Swedish novelist Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels and starring Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous police inspector. The first three-episode series, produced by Yellow Bird, Left Bank Pictures and TKBC for BBC Scotland, was broadcast on BBC One from November to December 2008. It is the first time the Wallander novels have been adapted into an English-language production. Yellow Bird, formed by Mankell, began negotiations with British companies to produce the adaptations in 2006. In 2007, Branagh met with Mankell to discuss playing the role. Contracts were signed and work began on the films, adapted from Sidetracked, Firewall and One Step Behind, in January 2008. Emmy-award-winning director Philip Martin was hired as lead director. Martin worked with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to establish a visual style for the series. The two were keen to use the Red One digital camera, making Wallander the first British television series to do so.

The second series was filmed from July to October 2009 and was broadcast in January 2010. The third series was filmed in the summer of 2011 in Ystad and Riga, Latvia, and aired in July 2012. Critics have written positively of the series, which has won a Broadcasting Press Guild Award (Best Actor for Branagh) and six British Academy Television Awards, including Best Drama Series.