Cannes: Diana film slams UK royals as 'gangsters'

The movie "Unlawful Killing" revives claims that Princess Diana - adored by millions as the "people's princess" but viewed in royal circles as an embarrassing loose cannon - was murdered by the British establishment. The film was screened Friday for the first time at the festival.

It bills itself as "the antidote to 'The King's Speech'" and depicts the royal family as feudal relics presiding over a network of official cronies at taxpayers' expense. Director Keith Allen says, however, it's "not an attack on the monarchy."

"I don't think it's anti-monarchy," he said. "I think it may be questioning capitalism."

The film takes its title from the verdict of an official British inquest into Diana's 1997 death in a Paris car crash. The jury ruled the princess was unlawfully killed, but deflated claims of a conspiracy, blaming "grossly negligent driving" by her drunk and speeding driver and pursuing vehicles.

But the movie by actor Allen - father of singer Lily Allen - revisits conspiracy theories put forward by Mohamed Al Fayed, whose son Dodi was Diana's boyfriend at the time and died in the same crash.

Fayed, the billionaire former owner of London's Harrods department store, funded the 2.5 million pound ($4 million) documentary. He has long maintained that his son and Diana were killed by the British secret service at the behest of an establishment horrified by her romance with a Muslim man.