Italian City in Amanda Knox Case Wants to Move On. A New Series Won’t Let It.

Europe|Italian City in Amanda Knox Case Wants to Move On. A New Series Won’t Let It.

Seventeen years after Amanda Knox, the American exchange student, was arrested and charged with killing her roommate in Perugia, a picturesque university city in central Italy, some of its citizens are outraged that their city is once again being dragged into a tragedy that they would prefer to forget.

This month, when cast and crew arrived there for a two-day shoot for a Hulu series about the case — a show for which Ms. Knox and Monica Lewinsky are executive producers — Mayor Vittoria Fernandi felt obliged to write a heartfelt letter of apology to the city for the hurt caused by their presence.

One resident, honoring the memory of Meredith Kercher, the slain roommate, draped a sheet from a balcony with “Respect for Meredith” painted in bold red letters. A council member questioned on social media whether the mayor should have allowed the production to shoot in Perugia, where the crime has long overshadowed the city’s “history, art and beauty.”

An editorial in the daily newspaper La Nazione wrote, “Perhaps Meredith and Perugia would have deserved more respect without having to sacrifice the dignity of a murdered student and a brutalized city to business.”

It hardly mattered that after spending four years in prison, Ms. Knox was acquitted for the death of Ms. Kercher, a 21-year-old student from England who was murdered in the house they shared.

People forget “that she, too, is a victim in this case,” said Luca Luparia Donati, the director of the Italy Innocence Project, who is representing Ms. Knox in a slander case.