Factual

Sky Crime and streaming on NOW premiered The Impostor – The Story of Alessandro Proto on Tuesday, April 28 in prime time. This is a gripping and disturbing docufilm that traces the incredible rise and fall of one of the most enigmatic con artists of recent decades. Written by Marco Tursi and Egilde Verì, and produced by Ballandi for Hearst Networks Italia, this 120-minute documentary dives deep into the myth and manipulation carefully crafted by Proto.

Once a door-to-door salesman, Alessandro Proto managed to reinvent himself as a supposed titan of finance and real estate. His real talent didn’t lie in making investments or closing deals—it was in telling stories. Stories that convinced the media he was the man behind multimillion-dollar deals, that he was selling luxury homes on behalf of celebrities like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, or that he owned stakes in some of Italy’s largest corporations.

And the media, drawn in by his charm and the allure of his fabrications, followed his every move—until reality finally caught up with him.

The docufilm chronicles Proto’s meteoric ascent and his dramatic downfall, which culminated in his arrest after defrauding several victims, including a woman suffering from cancer. It’s a stark reminder of the devastating impact his lies had—not only financially, but emotionally and psychologically.
Through exclusive interviews, archival footage, and detailed reenactments, The Impostor examines the dangerously thin line between ambition and fraud, between image and truth. A line Proto crossed repeatedly, embodied in one of his most revealing statements: “You don’t need to do—just tell the story and make them believe.”