Twilight Director Defends Piracy Suspect

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Dec 9, 2009 5:00PM

Samantha Tumpach, the 22 year old local woman who's accused of movie piracy for allegedly taping all of three minutes of Twilight: New Moon inadvertently, has a new defender: the movie's director. Chris Weitz talked with the Sun-Times via email and called the case "terribly unfair," and pledging to help however he could. He added:

"There is, needless to say, a difference between trying to protect the copyright of a film and making an unfair example of someone who clearly seems not to have any intentions towards video piracy...I am not sure what effect I would have on the case...the film is, after all, not my property.”

Tumpach was arrested over Thanksgiving weekend for the incident after a theater worker spotted her filming the movie with a digital camera. Tumpach insists she wasn't bootlegging the movie, but rather recording events surrounding her older sister's surprise birthday party. Of the three minutes of footage, there are clips of the movie but also movie previews and shots of her family. Trumpach told the Sun-Times, “It was never my intention to record the movie. You can hear me talking the whole time.” She's mostly due in court next week.