The director of Stillwater said he was fascinated by Ms Knox’s wrongful murder conviction in Italy.
image sourceEPA
Amanda Knox has criticised actor Matt Damon and director Tom McCarthy for “profiting” from her wrongful murder conviction.
Damon stars in McCarthy’s new film, Stillwater, which the director said was inspired by Ms Knox’s legal fight.
The American was jailed in Italy for four years for the murder of a British student before she was later acquitted.
She said the filmmakers “[ripped] off my story without my consent at the expense of my reputation”.
The 34-year-old and her former boyfriend were twice convicted of the 2007 killing of Ms Knox’s roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. They were exonerated in 2015.
McCarthy has said Ms Knox’s case helped inspire his new movie’s storyline.
Stillwater follows Damon’s character as he travels to France after his daughter is imprisoned for murdering her lover.
In a lengthy blog post, Ms Knox complained she continues to be associated with a crime she did not commit.
In the film, she maintains, the character based on her is made to look as if she really did play a part in her lover’s death.
She accused Damon and McCarthy of “profiting by telling a story that distorts my reputation in negative ways”.
“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,” she wrote.
She said neither Damon nor McCarthy tried to speak to her while they made the film.
Ms Kercher, 21, was stabbed to death in the Perugia flat she shared with Ms Knox in November 2007, in a case that made headlines around the world.
Another man, Rudy Hermann Guede, born in Ivory Coast, was convicted of murder in a separate trial and given a 16-year sentence.
Spotlight director McCarthy told Vanity Fair that, after hearing about Ms Knox, he became fascinated by what she went through.
He said that his team decided to “leave the Amanda Knox case behind”.
But when making the film they agreed to keep the part about an American student getting mixed up in a crime and being jailed.
The BBC has contacted Focus Features, the film’s production company, for comment.