A documentary that shows a graphic photograph of a dying Princess Diana — a film that contends there was a cover-up about her death — is coming to the Cannes Film Festival in a cloud of controversy. ‘Unlawful Killing,’ directed by British actor and filmmaker Keith Allen (‘Shallow Grave,’ ‘Trainspotting’) includes paparazzi photos that were banned in Britain. They show a close-up of the dying princess after her car crashed in a Paris underpass in 1997.
The film will be shown outside of the official festival. The film, which says the there were suspicious circumstances surrounding Diana’s death, was funded by businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, father of Dodi Fayed, Diana’s partner, who also died in the crash. Al-Fayad is set to arrive in Cannes in time for the premiere of the movie on May 13. In a statement, Allen said, “Screening this film in Cannes for the world’s media will be both exhilarating and terrifying for me.”
He called the movie an “inquest of the inquest” into Diana’s death and said it is being shown here because British lawyers demanded 87 cuts before a release in the United Kingdom. Instead, it is being released in France and then in the United States, with worldwide distribution possible. An online trailer for the movie says Diana wrote a letter to a friend in 1993 alleging, “My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car.”
The film has an original score by Dave Stewart and includes contributions from Tony Curtis, Piers Morgan, Howard Stern and Kitty Kelley. Writing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Allen said the film is not “about a conspiracy before the crash, but a provable conspiracy after the crash. A conspiracy organised not by a single scheming arch-fiend, but collectively by the British establishment — judges, lawyers, politicians, police chiefs, secret services, even newspaper editors — all of whom have been appointed to their positions because they are ‘a safe pair of hands.’ ”
The picture premieres just weeks after the wedding of Prince William, Diana’s first son, and the reaction in Britain is shock.
