DreamWorks and Parkes/MacDonald Prods. have acquired the rights to
Oscar-nominated documentary “The Life of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang
Bang Club.”The producers will use the film and tap the research of director
Dan Krauss for a feature about the Pulitzer Prize-winning photog. Carter
dodged bullets to capture images of famine and violence in the waning days
of apartheid.Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, who’ll produce, closed the
rights deal with Krauss just before his docu drew its Oscar nom. Doc had
several suitors as the role of Carter has the potential to attract a big
male star.Exec Alisa Tager brought the project to Parkes, who got the upper
hand partly because Krauss’ Berkeley film professor shot part of Parkes’ own
docu, “The California Reich.” Krauss, whose docu will air on HBO, will be
exec producer.South African-born Carter grew up loathing apartheid, and
through photography found an outlet to show its impact to the world. He
became famous when his photo of a starving Sudanese child stalked by a
vulture won the Pulitzer Prize. When he described waiting for 20 minutes for
the starving child and vulture to fit perfectly in his frame, critics called
him a vulture for not interceding. Carter committed suicide at 33.”Beyond
dramatizing a courageous life at a historic turning point, we hope to
explore why Kevin ended things the way that he did; in some ways, that photo
both made him and destroyed him,” Parkes said. “Even though his work brought
international attention to the struggles in South Africa and the Sudan, the
end of Kevin’s life was dominated by the controversy surrounding one
picture, and his decision to document rather than intercede. His story is
particularly relevant now, as we’ve become a world hooked on visual
information. As the violent reactions to the publishing of the cartoons in
Denmark last week suggest, the power of the image has never been more
evident.