Our Voice: Lifetime movie about trial is not acceptable
Four years ago Amanda Knox was the center of a murder trial that garnered international attention from the press; now she is the inspiration for Lifetime’s newest movie “Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy.” The 23-year old college student from Seattle was convicted for the murder Meredith Kercher, her flatmate, in the Italian hill town of Perugia in Nov. 2007. She was found guilty of murder and sexual assault in Dec. 2009 and sentenced to 26 years in prison, which she is currently serving in Italy.
Hayden Panettiere premiered as Knox last Monday when the movie was released in the United States. The movie follows Knox’s junior year abroad beginning with a blooming romantic relationship, through the shocking events of a drug-infused, sexual game culminating with murder and ending with Knox’s arrest. The movie has been met with a slew of outrage from both Knox’s attorneys and Kercher’s family.
Knox has launched an appeal against her conviction, with the next hearing to be held in a Perugia court room later this month. Knox’s attorney’s argue that the trailers and movie will poison the jury and judge against her. They claim the movie will ruin her right to a fair trial under the Italian Constitution when only a month ago a court judge ordered an independent review of the DNA evidence used to convict the Knox.
While true events have long been the basis of great films, Lifetime jumped the gun on this real-life thriller. The movie will not be aired in Italy, but pirated versions are sure to have already gone viral reaching across countries. In addition to Lifetime’s insensitivity to the ongoing trial, the film is riddled with flaws—19 of them—according to Seattle Post-Intelligencer despite the fact that Lifetime states the film was based on Italian court documents, transcripts and media coverage. The movie version of Knox visits an Italian amusement park with her lover, has a Catholic mother who wears a crucifix and is confronted by her flatmate about a messy bathroom– remarks that send her into a rage and result in her stabbing her flatmate to death. In reality, Knox never visited the Italian amusement park, does not have a Catholic mother and was never confronted by her flatmate (friends state she was too timid to breach the subject). Also, the release of the movie less than five years after Kercher’s murder screams of insensitivity to the pain suffered by Kercher’s family especially with the inclusion of a graphic trailer scene of Kerhcher being attacked, a scene abruptly dropped from the broadcast.
Though the riveting murder drama does not expressly condemn Knox as guilty, it ultimately has the power to sway Knox’s fate. The Colonnade does not approve the making of movies that interfere with the administration of justice in serious crimes. An individual’s right to fair trial is worth far more than television ratings.
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