Michael Winterbottom: The Face Of An Angel is a tribute to Meredith

The Trip director’s new film, starring Cara Delevingne and Daniel Bruhl, is inspired by the trial of American student Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith while they were both living and studying in Perugia, Italy.

Michael said: “For me who did it is not the most important thing. I hope, if you watch the film, you start being interested in the case, the film starts as most films about murder do, it’s about who did it, how they did it, where they were, how did it happen, how many knives there were, how many people there were.

“But in the end I hope you feel all that is not that important, compared to the fact that there is this girl, who’s 20 years old, who’d gone to Italy a few weeks before to have an amazing year at university, who had all her life ahead of her, and she was killed. And a family lost their daughter and their sister. That is much more important than the details that happened on the night.

“In general with court cases, people focus on the people who’ve been accused rather than the victim, and I think that’s in lots of ways wrong.

“The media spends a massive amount of time covering violence in general, crime in general, but in particular murder cases, but in all that noise, almost what they never do is get to the heart of the story – the person whose life has been taken.

“For me the idea is that we should refocus that a little bit. I hope the film in a little way is a way of trying to remember Meredith.”

Although names have been changed in the film, and the action has been relocated to Sienna, Michael admits his film is based on the case. The director attended some of the court hearings and admitted he was shocked by what he saw.

He said: “You sort of know what it might be like to be a journalist covering those stories, but until you go there and see it you can’t quite believe it is as bad as it is.

“There are 100 journalists from around the world and it just involves standing outside the court, running after the van when the accused is being brought in, desperately trying to get into the courtroom. And at the end of it all, the whole two days’ work, the big scoop was what colour skirt Amanda Knox was wearing. It really is that trivial.”

This week Italy’s Court of Cassation will decide whether Amanda’s 2009 conviction should stand, or whether she should face yet another trial on appeal.

In the film, Daniel Bruhl plays a filmmaker who is thinking about making a movie about the trial, and while staying in Italy he befriends a British student working in a bar, played by Cara Delevingne.

Michael has previously admitted he had never heard of model Cara when he cast her in the film. He said: “I didn’t really know who Cara was, to be honest. Someone had told me who she was and I met her.

“Cara wants to act. I think she can act. Being a model is a different skill to being an actor. She makes you feel like she is a 21-year-old student, and it was that side of her when I met her that felt like that anyway.”

The Face Of An Angel opens in cinemas on Friday March 27.