Filming of Amanda Knox series in Perugia sparks local backlash

The Mayor of Perugia, the town where British exchange student Meredith Kercher was murdered in 2007, has issued an apology to locals, angry at a new TV series being filmed in the Umbrian capital.

“I apologise to those who felt betrayed by this choice”, said Vittoria Ferdinandi in an open letter.

The eight-part series, titled ‘Blue Moon’, will chronicle the sixteen-year battle led by Amanda Knox to clear her name.

Knox, along with Meredith Kercher’s boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were both convicted of Kercher’s murder twice. The pair spent four years in prison before their release in 2011 and official acquittal in 2015.

Kercher’s family against the series

The filming of the series coincides with the 17-year anniversary of Kercher’s death. Her family stated that they found it “difficult to understand” how the series served any purpose.

Knox has reportedly earned over €4.2m from her memoir, has taken part in a Netflix documentary, as well as being the subject of numerous books and films.

Since Kercher’s murder made global headlines almost 20 years ago, the residents of the historic Italian town of Perugia have been fighting to reclaim its reputation.

Upon arrival, film crews were met with bans reading “Rispetto per Meredith” (“Respect for Meredith”), displayed across the city last week.

“The city of Meredith Kercher’s murder”

In a video shared on Facebook, Margherita Scoccia, a former councillor stated: “For too long, Perugia was sadly famous in the world as the city of Meredith Kercher’s murder.”

“Is it right that our community is associated with such a terrible crime again?”, she added.

Amanda Knox is one of the series’ co-producers, along with Monica Lewinsky, who many remember for her affair with former US president Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Perugia’s Mayor, Vittoria Ferdinandi stated: “We couldn’t block the production, which would have taken place anyway”, explaining that the scenes “would have been filmed in any other town in our region”. 

Ferdinandi claimed filming in Perugia would allow the town to retain some oversight no the series: “We felt that having the scenes filmed here would have been a greater element of guarantee and control…”.

“[I] lost sight of the people, the pain alive in their flesh while making the decision,” added Ferdinandi.

In June, an Italian court upheld a slander conviction against Knox, for wrongly accusing Patrick Lumumba, who owned a bar in Perugia, of murdering Kercher. Rudy Guede remains the only person to have been definitively convicted of the murder. He was released from prison in November 2021 after serving 13 years of his 16-year sentence.

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‘Blue Moon’ is set to air on Hulu. No premiere date has yet been given.