Kirsten Dunst To Play Nonprofit Worker Killed In Iraq

According to Daily Variety, Kirsten Dunst, best known as Spiderman's love interest, will play a 28-year-old American relief worker who was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber.

The movie, to be made for Paramount Pictures, will tell the remarkable story of Marla Ruzicka, 28, who ran a nonprofit organization that lobbied for financial compensation for civilian casualties of war.

Nonprofit Management Jobs

If the Kirsten Dunst project makes it to the screen, it could go a long way to give attention to nonprofit management careers. Nonprofit management jobs require education and devotion, but are rarely as dangerous as the work taken on by the late Marla Ruzicka.

Nonprofit Hero on The Silver Screen

Paramount made a deal last year to acquire the rights both to the life story of Ruzicka and to a book being written by Jennifer Abrahamson, who had planned to work on the book with the late aid worker before she died. Abrahamson and Ruzicka had been shopping the book deal to literary agents before the tragedy.

Now, Anrhamson plans to release a book about her former colleague. It is this book on which the film will be based. The film promises to bring new light to nonprofit management jobs.

Nonprofit Counted War's Victims

According to the Middle East Times, Ruzicka, through her nonprofit organization Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, worked extensively in Iraq and in Afghanistan to document the exact number of civilians killed or injured by US forces.

Thanks to her nonprofit management career, she helped victims receive $10 million in compensation from the US government through a bill sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. She was killed soon after when a suicide bomber targeted her car as she drove to Baghdad airport in early 2005.

New Wave of Hollywood Iraq Projects

The film project is part of a new wave of Iraq based projects. This crop of films comes after a long reluctance by Hollywood to take on the three year old war.

Big-screen movies in the works include the drama No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah, set to star Harrison Ford, and Jarhead, starring Jamie Foxx and Jake Gyllenhaal, which opened in November 2005.

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About the Author

Alex Russel is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Since graduating from Syracuse University he has worked at many different media companies in fields as diverse as film, TV, advertising, and journalism. He holds a dual bachelor's degree in English and History.