Film planned on life of Jack Kevorkian

LAPEER, Mich. — Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple plans a film on assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian.

The film will be based on a 300-page unpublished manuscript by Michigan authors and Kevorkian friends Neal Nicol and Harry Wylie. Kopple and producer Steve Jones say they plan to begin shooting in Michigan by early 2005.

“We’re at the beginning, just sort of starting to let this project seep into our souls,” Kopple, who won documentary Oscars for “Harlan County, U.S.A.” and “American Dream,” told the Detroit Free Press.

Last week, Jones visited Kevorkian, 76, at the Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer. He is in the fifth year of a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder for giving a poison injection to 52-year-old Thomas Youk in 1998.