Getting a film into the Sundance Film Festival is one thing, but having it emerge as one of the most talked about titles among a number of other movies jockeying for attention is quite a feat. And that's what has happened with Bart Layton's "The Imposter."
The film tells the impossible but very true and twisted tale of a 13-year-old boy who disappears without a trace from San Antonio, Texas in 1994. Three and a half years later he is found alive, thousands of miles away in a village in southern Spain with a story of kidnapping and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not quite as it seems. The boy bears many of the same distinguishing marks he always had, but why does he now have a strange accent? Why does he look so different? Any why doesn't the family seem to notice these glaring inconsistencies? It's only when an investigator starts asking questions that this strange tale takes an even stranger turn.
Enhancing this strange story was the decision to dramatize many of the events that took place, giving "The Imposter" a cinematic shape and scope that standard form documentaries rarely have. It's a method that's not always embraced by those in the documentary world. However, this exclusive in-depth featurette with Layton and the other filmmakers on the project goes behind their decision to stage the events in their story, the making of the movie and how the approach ties into the themes of artifice and manipulation that "The Imposter" brings up.
The film opens in limited release on July 13th and will continue to roll out across the country in the coming weeks. Check out the featurette below.
