It was written by Wendy Battles, who has worked on scripts for the American television series CSI: NY and Law & Order,[3] and filmed in Rome, after officials refused to grant the production team permission to shoot in Perugia.

[2][dead link‍] In Italy, the television film has been transmitted on Canale 5, on December 3, 2012, after Amanda Knox sent a team of lawyers to Mediaset, to prevent the airing.

Knox shares a flat in a cottage with Meredith Kercher, a British student, and two Italian women, Filomena and Laura.

In October, Knox meets Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian student of computer engineering, at a classical music concert, and they start dating.

During Sollecito's interrogation, he is informed by police that telephone records indicate he has called the emergency number after the Polizia Postale arrived on the day Kercher's body was discovered.

The officers claim that Knox had left the message for her employer, pub owner Patrick Lumumba, on the night of the murder to tell him she would meet him later.

The forensics team finds a bloody fingerprint at the crime scene that does not match the prints of either Knox or Sollecito.

The resulting manhunt leads to the arrest of Rudy Guede, originally from the Côte d'Ivoire, whom Knox and Kercher had met weeks earlier.

Knox and Sollecito are tried jointly in 2009 on the charges of murder, sexual assault, staging a crime scene, and transporting a lethal knife.

The chief forensics investigator testifies that Sollecito's DNA was found on a metal clasp severed from the back strap of Kercher's bra (presented as being cut off with a knife in the flashback).

The film closes with a caption stating that the parents of the real-life Knox have both been charged with criminal slander for claiming that police had abused their daughter, and that they face three years' imprisonment if found guilty.

Actresses Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox, Emily Blunt and Kristen Stewart were all considered for the part of Knox prior to the casting of Panettiere.

John stated "They are absolutely horrific and I have asked and would hope the pictures are withdrawn" in reference to the scenes in which Kercher is attacked and murdered by her friends.

"[2] Kercher's lawyer, Francesco Maresca, expressed his displeasure at the making of the film: "It is inopportune as the trial is still ongoing with two further appeals.

[10] Nick Squires of The Daily Telegraph wrote that the film did "a credible job of navigating a complex case without coming down one way or the other on whether Knox and ... Sollecito ... are innocent or guilty.

[12] In the film, a shop owner contacts the police immediately to tell them that Knox bought some cleaning supplies from him on the morning of the murder.

[15] In the film, Knox enters the court on a red carpet, dressed in what Battiste describes as a "sexually suggestive" manner, and waving to the reporters.

[12][15] The film portrays Knox and Sollecito sitting near each other and sharing shifty looks during the trial, when in reality they sat farther apart.