Creators of Meredith Kercher's BBC movie are to be sued by Amanda Knox's defense team if the movie will be shown on screens.
Daily Mail said director Michael Winterbottom and CNN journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau could be slapped with the lawsuit by Knox's lawyers if they proceed to release "The Face of an Angel." The movie is based off Nadeau's book that covers the murder of slain student Meredith Kercher in 2007. Amanda Knox and a couple of others have been charged with the crime. In the movie, the film focuses on the lives of book author Simone Ford (Kate Beckinsale), a filmmaker who aims to make a movie about Ford's book, Thomas (Daniel Bruhl), and a waitress named Melanie (Cara Delevingne).
Attorney Luciano Ghirga said Amanda is threatening to sue as the film could harm her image, especially with the fact that her appeal for her re-conviction is still in progress. Ghirga said, "There have already been at least two films and 12 books about the case. If the film is based even loosely on the murder in Perugia and if it is damaging to Amanda's image, we will be asking for damages, as we have done in other cases."
Nadeau, who was assigned to cover Kercher's murder, had written a book about the journey and story behind Kercher's death, which was allegedly under the responsibility of Amanda and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. The murder happened on Valentine's Day. The British student was found lying on the ground with a stab on her throat. In the said film, Winterbottom said that the goal was to focus on Meredith's story. Genevieve Gaunt portrays Jessica Fuller, the Amanda Knox character in the film. The actress previously played Pansy Parkinson, a love interest of Draco Malfoy in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Winterbottom talked to Screen Daily about the film and said that he has secured approval from Meredith's loved ones to work on the film for she was the real victim after all. He added, "The Kercher family had talked a lot about that, with a huge amount of dignity, the reasons they went for the trial was to make sure that amongst the chaos, it was remembered that someone had lost their life. That was one of the central things I thought about."
Nadeau seconded Winterbottom's interpretation to Kercher's story. She told Daily Mail, "Anything with Knox as the star would be disrespectful to Meredith. But the film is not really about the murder, it just uses it as a jumping off point."
The Independent seems to agree. The site wrote in its review about the film, "What quickly becomes apparent is that Winterbottom is more interested in looking at the journalists reporting on the trial than in trying to discover whether the American committed murder. As Thomas tells the film commissioners about his proposed film on the trial, 'this is not a whodunnit.'"
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