Amanda Knox is sharing her thoughts on Matt Damon‘s new movie, Stillwater.
The film stars Matt as a American oil-rig roughneck who travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin), who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit.
Amanda, who was convicted and eventually acquitted of the murder of her former roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007, took to Twitter to discuss the movie and point out the similarities between the plot and her own life.
Click inside to read what she said…
“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?” she wrote. “I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER.”
Amanda explained that she had read Stillwater director and co-writer Tom McCarthy‘s interview with Vanity Fair, where he told the outlet that he was inspired to write the movie after reading about Amanda‘s story, but wanted to reimagine a situation that showed what her family had to endure from overseas.
“We decided, ‘Hey, let’s leave the Amanda Knox case behind,’” he said. “But let me take this piece of the story—an American woman studying abroad involved in some kind of sensational crime and she ends up in jail—and fictionalize everything around it.”
“I want to pause right here on that phrase: ‘the Amanda Knox saga.’ What does that refer to? Does it refer to anything I did? No,” she stated. “It refers to the events that resulted from the murder of Meredith Kercher by a burglar named Rudy Guede,” Amanda continued.
She added that if it weren’t for “the shoddy police work, prosecutorial tunnel vision, and [Italian police's] refusal to admit their mistakes,” she wouldn’t have been wrongfully convicted for Meredith Kercher‘s murder.
“Everyone else in that ‘saga’ had more influence over events than I did,” she said. “The erroneous focus on me by the authorities led to an erroneous focus on me by the press, which shaped how I was viewed. In prison, I had no control over my public image, no voice in my story.”
“This focus on me led many to complain that Meredith had been forgotten,” she continued. “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.”
She compared the media’s coverage of the event to the Bill Clinton‘s affair with Monica Lewinsky.
“It matters what you call a thing. Calling that event the ‘Lewinsky Scandal’ fails to acknowledge the vast power differential, & I’m glad that more people are now referring to it as ‘the Clinton Affair’ which names it after the person with the most agency in that series of events,” she explained.
She also added that Stillwater wasn’t the first project to take inspiration from her story and that it wouldn’t be the last, and said that she’d be willing to have a discussion with director Tom McCarthy and Matt Damon so long as they stop using her image to help promote the film.
“By fictionalizing 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,” she concluded. “And with Matt Damon‘s star power, both are sure to profit handsomely off of this fictionalization of ‘the Amanda Knox saga’ that is sure to leave plenty of viewers wondering, ‘Maybe the real-life Amanda was involved somehow.’”
Stillwater is set to be released in theaters on July 30.
The film received a standing ovation at Cannes and you can see a video of Matt Damon‘s reaction here.
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.
/ a thread
— Amanda Knox (@amandaknox) July 29, 2021
I want to pause right here on that phrase: “the Amanda Knox saga.” What does that refer to? Does it refer to anything I did? No. It refers to the events that resulted from the murder of Meredith Kercher by a burglar named Rudy Guede.
— Amanda Knox (@amandaknox) July 29, 2021
It refers to the shoddy police work, prosecutorial tunnel vision, and refusal to admit their mistakes that led the Italian authorities to wrongfully convict me, twice. In those four years of wrongful imprisonment and 8 years of trial, I had near-zero agency.
— Amanda Knox (@amandaknox) July 29, 2021
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.
— Amanda Knox (@amandaknox) July 29, 2021
from Just Jared https://ift.tt/3xomOgN
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