Princess Diana documentary announced with 'hours of intimate' unheard recordings
Diana Unheard has been described as a series telling the late princess' story "in her own voice at a pivotal point in her life".
A new Princess Diana documentary has been announced featuring "several hours of intimate" unheard recordings.
Cineflix has landed the rights to the three-part docuseries from UK indie company Love Monday TV, which has produced British monarch shows for ITV and Channel 5, and will feature Diana discussing her life, love and the Royal Family.
Richard Life, SVP Acquisitions and Co-productions for Cineflix Rights, told Deadline in a statement: "What really sets Diana Unheard apart is the unique opportunity to hear several hours of intimate recordings of the Princess; her own story in her own voice at a pivotal point in her life."
Producers of Diana Unheard have accessed secretly taped conversations the late princess had with friend James Colthurst in 1991, which were used for Andrew Morton's book Diana: Her True Story.
Both Colthurst and Morgan, who worked with Love Monday to give them access to several hours of recordings, appear in the series.
In the tapes, she speaks about then-Prince Charles and Camilla, and then-Prince Andrew.
Kerene Barefield, Creative Director at Love Monday TV, added: "In making Diana Unheard, we wanted to challenge the narrative that has too often portrayed Diana, Princess of Wales simply as a victim of her circumstances.
“This is Diana not as a passive victim of events, but as a woman taking control of her own narrative and risking everything to make her voice heard.
"Diana Unheard restores authorship of one of the most scrutinised lives in modern history to the woman at its centre.”
The factual series will get its launch at MIPCOM in Cannes, and Cineflix Rights are "thrilled" to be giving the show a platform almost three decades after she died in a car crash aged 36 in August 1997.
Richard Life added: "Thirty years on, Diana remains a global icon and source of endless fascination for viewers.
"We are thrilled to be representing this premium limited series from Love Monday TV, and look forward to launching it to our international buyers at MIPCOM.”
The new documentary has been announced just after King Charles hit out at Earl Spencer over claims made in his former brother-in-law's new book about the late princess.
Buckingham Palace suggested the 62-year-old earl's grief over his beloved sister had "clouded reason" and "affected judgement" after he claimed in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister that the monarch had sneered Diana would be forgotten "soon enough" during a phone call in the days following her passing.
In a very rare statement, a spokesperson for the king said: “While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.”
In a preview from the clip serialised by the Daily Mail, the earl wrote in his book: "Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped.
“I assumed the pause signalled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death. ‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough!’”
A source close to the king insisted to the Telegraph that the alleged remark was “just not in his nature and it certainly wasn’t in his nature at that time, when he was a man absolutely grief-stricken”.
