Controversial Princess Diana Documentary "Unlawful Killing" Shelved

[JamesG]

Controversial Princess Diana Film Unlawful Killing Will Debut at Cannes
By Sharon Knolle
Posted May 10th 2011


An as-yet-unseen documentary about Princess Diana is causing outrage for what it claims to show: a photograph of the late princess as she lay dying after her car crash in a Paris tunnel.

The film Unlawful Killing, by actor and filmmaker Keith Allen, alleges that Diana predicted her own death by "accident" four years before it happened and that the royal family and other British officials have conspired in an elaborate cover-up.

The 90-minute film, which Allen calls "the inquest of the inquest," is reportedly backed by Mohammed Fayed, whose son Dodi also died in the infamous crash. British cinemas have refused to show the film due to its graphic content, but it will be screened this Friday at Cannes.








"Screening this film in Cannes for the world's media will be both exhilarating and terrifying for me," Allen tells the London newspaper The Guardian.

"The movie is not about a conspiracy before the crash, but a provable conspiracy after the crash. It's a conspiracy organized not by a single scheming arch-fiend, but collectively by the British establishment –- judges, lawyers, politicians, police chiefs, secret services, even newspaper editors."







Watch the trailer for Unlawful Killing:




http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/05/10...g-controversy/

[comedyfreak]

I can't believe the French government didn't prosecute those papparazzi.

[JamesG]

A Hot TMZ Mess: The Controversial Princess Di Doc Premieres at the Cannes Market
by Dana Harris
May 13, 2011


The Cannes Film Festival was temporarily hijacked Friday by the market premiere for “Unlawful Killing.”

Keith Allen’s “inquest into the inquest” of Princess Diana’s death was received by a humid crush of buyers and press drawn by the heat of controversy.

In addition to its unabashed embrace of conspiracy theories surrounding the incident, there has been international outrage at the film’s would-be inclusion of a “gruesome” and “graphic” photo of a dying Diana.





“This was three years in the making,” Allen told the audience inside the Olympia 2 theater. “I’m proving that I’m not a raving Republican or Trotskyite.”

And, he added, “The photo is nowhere near as contentious as it’s presented to be.”





All right—now that we know what it isn’t, what is “Unlawful Killing”?



This movie is a hot TMZ-flavored mess.

Like what you see on TMZ, much of what’s presented here could very well be true—but the presentation itself works to undermine the message.







That said, Allen’s right: If you hadn’t been told about the Diana photo in advance, you might not have noticed it was there at all.

While the film presents a healthy assortment of eye-rolling moments, there’s absolutely nothing to the photo’s would-be exploitation controversy.

The black-and-white image shows little beyond the general impression of the car’s twisted metal; in the very back is Diana’s face, her eyes closed. And the film does nothing to highlight, much less exploit, the image.






“Unlawful Killing” only sounds like it ripped off the title of a little-known Ice-T movie from the 1990s.

It’s actually the formal verdict of the inquest’s jury, which determined that the deaths of Diana, Dodi Al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul were the equivalent of manslaughter.






The film’s director, Keith Allen, is a veteran UK actor who’s a familiar and colorful favorite of chat hosts.

Known for his stints in rehab and as the father of singer Lily Allen, he’s also fond of shots that show him nodding sagely at his interview subjects.






He could have done with a better class of interview.

While Piers Morgan comports himself quite well (“The inquest raised more questions than it answered,” he says. “I don’t know the answers.”), others featured include Howard Stern interviewing Mohamed Al-Fayed; a wheelchair-bound and cowboy-hatted ailing Tony Curtis vouching for Dodi’s intelligence (“He was smart, Dodi!”) and his love of Diana; and Kitty Kelley being Kitty Kelley.






Mohamed Al-Fayed burned the royal crests.

After Prince Philip ordered that the royal crests be removed from the front of Harrod’s, Mohamed burned them in a ceremony on his estate in Surrey, in front of the mausoleum where Dodi is buried.






The Dave Stewart music is a mistake.

Stewart’s name is impressive, but the film’s wannabe pulse-pounding soundtrack sounds like it belongs on the ripoff of a “CSI:” ripoff.






So are the reenactments.

Allen reconstructs the inquest using notes taken by his “mole,” Richard Wiseman, who posed as a member of the covering press.

While the transcripts themselves are believable, the ham-fisted reenactments are tacky and lit for maximum, mustache-twirling impact.






The film is driven not by one conspiracy theory, but several.

Among them are Diana knew she was going to be killed, the murder was timed to undercut her work to eradicate land mines; the media ignores the truth in order to curry the Queen’s favor and the Royal Family’s determination to off her was driven by anti-Muslim racism.






Allen raises some good points, though none are new.

There’s Diana’s prediction that “my husband is planning an accident on my car,” written in her own hand.

There’s the mysterious White Fiat Uno, which witnesses saw at the crash site and may have belonged to paparazzi James Andanson. He was later found in a burned-out shell of a car and ruled a suicide.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/a_h...cannes_market/

[JamesG]

Controversial Princess Diana Documentary Unlawful Killing is Shelved
7/6/2012
by Pamela McClintock


Audiences won't see the controversial documentary about the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed after all.

Unlawful Killing, financed by Al-Fayed's billionaire father, Mohamed, has been shelved permanently after the producers couldn't secure the necessary insurance needed to indemnify them and distributors from any lawsuits involving the film's content.





The documentary -- alleging a cover-up following the 1997 deaths of Diana and Al-Fayed -- was set to be released in the U.S. and a number of foreign markets Aug. 31, the 15th anniversary of the Paris car crash accident that killed the pair and their driver.

Those territories included Spain, Italy, Holland, Brazil, India and Russia.



Alliedpresident Conor Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter that the U.S. distributor interested in releasing the film required global insurance coverage (Allied wouldn't reveal the identity of the distributor). However, no insurer would cover the U.K. or France, even though Unlawful Killing isn't being released in those countries.



At that point, Allied decided to withdraw the film entirely.

"It became undoable. We are all disappointed," Nolan said. "We worked on 'Unlawful Killing' for four years. We've written back to all of the distributors and are returning their minimum guarantees. We're doing the decent thing."

Unlawful Killing, critical of Britain's royal family, wasn't allowed to air in the U.K. unless 87 cuts were made to comply with the nation's libel laws.





At the heart of Killing is a 2007 inquest and subsequent ruling that Diana and Al-Fayed were killed because of the gross negligence of driver Henri Paul and the paparazzi who chased the couple. But Allen, who covertly observed the inquest proceedings, paints a radically different picture, demonstrating a conspiracy to hide key facts from a complicit British media.

Mohamed Al-Fayed, who has long blamed the royal family for the death of his son, decided to finance the project after Allen was turned down by British film companies and broadcasters.

Unlawful Killing was sold to a number of foreign distributors at the Cannes Film Market in 2011 and the American Film Market later that year.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...killing-346214