Ralph Fiennes is set to star in the drama, The Gifted.

From Jacob Aaron Estes (Nearing Grace), the film is based on the Ian Parker article, The Gift in The New Yorker about the life of controversial philanthropist Zell Kravinsky. Production Weekly adds he made millions in real estate and over the past six years he has given it all, nearly 45 million dollars of assets away. He kept for himself only a modest house; but this was not enough, in 2003 he donated his kidney to a stranger who needed it.

Look for a spring production start for The Gifted in New York; no release date has been set.

Fiennes will also make his directorial debut on the romantic drama, Snow Country.

The film is based on the Japanese novel, Yukiguni by Yasunari Kawabata, a Nobel Prize winner in literature. It's a story of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of northern Canada, the snowiest region on earth. Written by Nicholas Rohl, the love story chronicles the affair between a wealthy sophisticate and a 17-year-old Inuit girl being raised in a convent, who gives herself to him without illusions or regrets, knowing that their passion cannot last.

Production on Snow Country is scheduled to begin in September in Toronto, Winnipeg and the Arctic.