ROME — An American student accused in the slaying of her British roommate in Italy has appeared in a jailhouse movie, prison officials and the film’s director said Thursday.
Seattle student Amanda Knox performed in the 55-minute movie called “L’Ultima Citta” (The Last City), which tells the story of 12 female inmates who take an imaginary journey in seven fantasy cities, said director Claudio Carini. There are no immediate plans for the film to be seen publicly.
“Like all the others, she acted very well. She was very disciplined,” he said in a telephone interview.
Carini said that Knox acted both in English and Italian and “had a lot of fun.”
The movie, which Carini started shooting in September at the Capanne prison, near Perugia, includes excerpts from Shakespeare and Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.
Knox, 21, and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were indicted in October on charges of murder and sexual violence in the 2007 slaying of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia. The two deny wrongdoing.
A trial is scheduled to open Jan. 16.
The film had been slated to screen Sunday at a Perugia film festival, but prison officials and the local authorities who commissioned the movie put it on indefinite hold, fearing its release could affect Knox’s case.
The idea for the project began in June 2007 — months before Kercher’s Nov. 1, 2007, murder — so Knox’s participation in it is purely coincidental, regional official Damiano Stufara said in a statement.
The director of the Capanne prison, Antonio Fullone, who has seen the movie, said Thursday that because of Knox’s participation in the film, “We thought it most appropriate not to screen it at the festival.”
Fullone said a decision on whether to make the movie public has not been made yet.
Knox’s lawyers in Italy and a spokesman in Seattle representing Knox’s family were not immediately available for comment.
Knox and Sollecito have been in custody for over a year. A third man, Rudy Hermann Guede, of Ivory Coast, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on the same charges. Guede, who also denied any wrongdoing, asked for a fast-track trial.
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