Tom McCarthy breaks silence on Amanda Knox’s Stillwater criticism

‘I deeply empathise with Amanda and what she went through,’ director said

Tom McCarthy, the director of Stillwater, has finally responded to Amanda Knox’s criticism of the film.

Stillwater stars Matt Damon as a father who travels to France to help exonerate his daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn’t commit. The story is partially inspired by what has been described by press as “the Amanda Knox saga”.

Knox, who was acquitted in the case of Meredith Kercher’s murder in 2007, claimed that McCarthy and Damon have “profited” from her wrongful murder conviction in a lengthy Twitter thread that went viral last week.

McCarthy and Damon did not immediately respond to Knox’s thread, but in a new interview with Variety, the director has now said: “I deeply empathise with Amanda and what she went through. She was rightfully found innocent and acquitted in the Meredith Kercher case. She has platforms to speak her truth and engage with the media and she is exercising her absolute right to do so.

“But, by her own account, she has not seen Stillwater and what she seems to be raising feels very removed from the film we actually made.”

He added that Stillwater “is a work of fiction and not about her life experience”.

When asked whether he wished he had spoken with Knox prior to making the film, McCarthy said that because Stillwater is a “work of fiction”, it would not have been necessary. “There were a few entry points that sparked the narrative, including aspects of real-life events but the story and characters within my latest film are all invented,” he said.

Stillwater, which was given two stars in The Independent’s review, is out now.