Amanda Knox claimed that Matt Damon-starrer Stillwater had portrayed her story without her consent and had profited off her name. Knox along with her former partner were convicted of murdering Knox’s roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in 2007. They were subsequently exonerated in 2015.
According to Knox, Stillwater directed by Tom McCarthy had fictionalised portions of her life and her wrongful conviction without due credit. The film had premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.
According to IMDB, the film showcased the story of a father who travelled from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who was in prison for a murder she claimed she did not commit.
McCarthy recently told Vanity Fair that although the film was “directly inspired” by the “Amanda Knox saga”, his only takeaway from the incident was- “What would that be like as an American student to go over [to Europe] for what should be one of the most exciting moments in a young-adult life and to find yourself in that tragedy?”.
Knox in her tweets said, “Let me stop you right there. That story, my story, is not about an American woman studying abroad ‘involved in some kind of sensational crime’. It is about an American woman NOT involved in a sensational crime, and yet wrongfully convicted.”
Knox was on trial for eight years and was imprisoned for four years despite the authorities having the perpetrator, Rudy Guede, in their custody, she claims in one of the tweets.
She said neither Damon nor McCarthy tried to speak to her while they made the film.
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“Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER,” she wrote.
“I would love nothing more than for people to refer to the events in Perugia as ‘The murder of Meredith Kercher by Rudy Guede,’ which would place me as the peripheral figure I should have been, the innocent roommate,” she said.
She stated that she continues to be associated with a crime she did not commit and that everyone else in the story has had more influence over events than she ever did.
To substantiate, she uploaded an image of a New York Post headline about Guede’s release from prison, that uses her name while omitting both Krecher’s and Guede’s.
“You’re not leaving the Amanda Knox case behind when my face appears on profiles and articles about the film,” she wrote, referring to the Vanity Fair article.
“This focus on me led many to complain that Meredith had been forgotten. But of course, who did they blame for that? Not the Italian authorities. Not the press. Me! Somehow it was my fault that the police and media focused on me at Meredith’s expense,” read one of the tweets.
She added, “By fictionalising away my innocence, my total lack of involvement, by erasing the role of the authorities in my wrongful conviction, McCarthy reinforces an image of me as a guilty and untrustworthy person”.
Knox, who is currently working as a journalist, additionally blamed the authorities for their “shoddy police work, prosecutorial tunnel vision, and refusal to admit their mistakes”.
She concluded by mentioning that she has extended the invitation to interview both McCarthy and Damon on her podcast, Labyrinths.