Amanda
Knox
An examination of one of the most sensationalized murder cases of the modern era, the 2007 killing of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, told through exclusive access to Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, DNA experts and tabloid journalist Nick Pisa. Amanda Knox was my first feature documentary, and was nominated for two Primetime Emmys, for Best Documentary and Best Writing (which I shared with friend and collaborator Matt Hamachek, now famous for directing The Dynasty series on Apple TV+).
The film took me, Rod Blackhurst and Mette Heide five years to make, as we dove deeply into case files, worked to gain the trust of the subjects on both sides, and gathered never-before-seen footage, including video that Amanda had shot of Meredith days before the tragedy. Thematically, the film interrogates the machinery of suspicion from an investigatory standpoint, and the ways that, through the mainstream media, we feed our culture's voracious appetite for salacious crime stories.
Press
“Completely riveting…a tightly edited, coherently structured and ultimately moving reassessment that burrows beneath the lurid in search of the illuminating…a savage denunciation of the way entertainment imperatives have corrupted the news media. At this singular moment in our political history, the resonance is deafening.”
“Carries the force of revelation. Gripping and incisive…a resonant documentary, with a reach far beyond this case. The film captures how the unreality of tabloid journalism has slid through digital portals into the mainstream, becoming part of the toxic air of misinformation that we all now breathe.”
“Equal parts Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith…Hard as it is to say that anything is the last word in this most divisive of cases, “Amanda Knox” looks to be it.”
“Sharp and frequently enraging.”
“Feels almost like a nostalgic throwback to The Thin Blue Line and Paradise Lost…what you end up with are portraits of individuals — people who are scared or angry or ambitious — all a part of a story that, from the start, ignored their humanity.”
“More illuminating than a decade’s worth of trial coverage.”
“A well-made, accomplished piece of filmmaking that illuminates how something like this could happen to anyone. Whether you think she did it or not, “Amanda Knox” is a horror story that should be told.”
“An insightful procedural that functions as a meta-commentary on our obsession with true crime.”
“Substantive and even-handed, Blackhurst and McGinn do a vise-tightening job with the unpacking the facts as we now know them, as we never knew them, and as they were originally distorted beyond all reason.”
“Simultaneously maddening and frightening…Amanda Knox serves as a corrective — a simple, brutal look at the dangers of hype, hysteria, and rushed prosecution.”
“Amanda Knox makes for succinct, involving viewing, a true-crime doc that acknowledges the lingering debates over its subject’s guilt while prompting one to ask: Why did anyone ever believe this outrageous stuff in the first place, much less cling to it for years?”
“Coolly eviscerating…an astounding but subtly illuminating documentary about how women are condemned for having normal interests and urges…one of the great cautionary tales of this century.”
“Plays like a narrative thriller…explores the role that the media, and wider societal stereotypes, had in affecting the case…a carefully balanced and frightening film with Knox a terrifyingly unknowable character at the grisly centre.”
“For sheer craftsmanship and watchability alone, Amanda Knox is a must-see offering on Netflix; for its exposure of the workings of justice systems and media culture, it’s an essential piece of work worth sharing and discussing.”
