Amanda Knox Prison Movie Star?

ROME, Dec 11, 2008— -- American exchange student AmandaKnox, perhaps the most famous murder suspect in Italy, isfeatured in a prison movie reciting the famous "To be, or not tobe" speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the director told Reuters.

The movie -- which has yet to be publicly screened --features 12 female inmates including the 21-year-old Knox, whohas been held in jail for over a year over the murder of herBritish flatmate Meredith Kercher in the university town ofPerugia.

"This is one of the cultural activities that inmates get todo," said the director of the publicly-financed film, ClaudioCarini, who in the past has also directed theatre productionsfor female inmates.

Prosecutors say Knox, her boyfriend and a third suspectfatally stabbed Kercher in the neck in November last year aftertrying to force her into joining an orgy. The case has rivetedItalians and received wide cover in British and American media.

The suspects all deny wrongdoing.

Carini estimated that Knox, a former student at Universityof Washington in Seattle, is on screen for just under 5 minutesof the 55-minute production, which he described as a non-linear"fantasy" film about the life of inmates.

During that time, Knox acts in both Italian and English,reciting the famous speech from Hamlet in which Shakespeare'scharacter contemplates the pains of life and his fear of death.

"She does the 'to be or not to be' (speech)," Carini said.

The film, which could premiere next month, also featuresother foreign inmates, including jailed women from EasternEurope and South America, and some Italians, he said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart, editing by Paul Casciato)