Great response to Stern & Wild client’s Netflix true crime doc

Congratulations to Stern & Wild filmmaker Emily Turner whose brilliant feature documentary for Netflix, AILEEN: QUEEN OF THE SERIAL KILLERS has generated multiple headlines and gripped audiences across the world since it dropped on the platform on 30 October. Within a day of launching the true crime film was the number one release in the streamer’s global movie chart and has remained in the top 10 for two weeks.

The film re-examines the story of Aileen Wournos who killed seven men across Central Florida between 1989 and 1990 and was eventually executed for the deaths in 2002. Based on the extensive archive of material that built up around the notorious case, it explores the circumstances that shaped Wuornos’s life and crimes, and examines the broader questions surrounding her motivations and the judicial system’s response.

In the latest Behind the Scenes feature in Broadcast, Director Emily and Editor Jinx Godfrey unpack the process of developing a film based primarily on archive footage.

“This film began with a piece of archive: a two-hour death row interview with ‘America’s first female serial killer’,” says Emily. “It had never been seen before and was the result of years of relationship building by BBC Studios with its director, Aileen’s friend Jasmine Hirst. Alongside Jasmine’s other self-shot footage – most notably from her 2002 trip to Florida for Aileen’s execution – a new and intimate way of telling Aileen’s story began to emerge.”

Emily discussed her intention for the film in a recent interview for the Netflix companion website Tudum, where she describes wanting to move past the simple “killer or victim” frame often put on Wuornos’s story. “It’s so much easier to write off someone who’s done such heinous acts as a cold-blooded murderer [rather than] a deeply damaged human,” she said. “Actually, she was made, and that’s chilling.”

The film is produced by the BBC Studios Documentary Unit in collaboration with NBC News Studios. Exec Producers are Kirsty Cunningham, Liz Cole, Elizabeth Fischer and Andy Berg; Archive Producers are Sam Dwyer and Christina Falk; Ella Jackson is Assistant Producer. Daniel Lapira is an Editor alongside Jinx.

AILEEN: QUEEN OF THE SERIAL KILLERS is streaming now on Netflix.