People go missing all the time. It is a sad fact of life. But what happens when those thought missing turn up again and spin a yarn or two? Even worse, what if suspicions grew that the person returned wasn’t who you thought they were? This is the premise of docu-drama, The Imposter, brought to the screen by two great film producers Simon Chan (Man on Wire, Project Nim) and John Battsek (One Day in September). Watch the trailer below. The film is released 24th August in the UK.

A gripping thriller straight out of real life, THE IMPOSTER is an original film experience that walks the razor’s edge between true-crime documentary and stylish noir mystery. The twisting, turning tale begins with an unsettling disappearance – that of Nicholas Barclay, a 13 year-old Texas boy who vanishes without a trace. Three and a half years later, staggering news arrives: the boy has been found, thousands of miles from home in Spain, saying he survived a mind-boggling kidnap ordeal. His family is ecstatic to have him back no matter how strange the circumstances – but things become far stranger once he returns to Texas. Though the family accepts him, suspicion surrounds the person who claims to be Nicholas. How could the Barclay’s blonde, blue-eyed son have returned with darker skin and eyes? How could his personality and even accent have changed so profoundly? Why does the family not seem to notice the glaring differences? And if this person who has arrived in Texas isn’t the Barclay’s missing child . . . who on earth is he? And what really happened to Nicholas?

Director Bart Layton fuses confessional interviews and suspenseful storytelling into a film that asks the audience to play detective – as they ferret out the blurred evidence between a family who seems desperate to believe, a private investigator obsessed with resolution and a lonely thief whose only loot is human identities. Yet, just when it seems the puzzle of Nicholas Barclay has come together, another corkscrew twist turns everything upside down – and draws the audience deeper into THE IMPOSTER’S lacerating questions about truth, perception and why people are so tempted to pretend, to fib and, most of all, to fool ourselves. A&E Indie Films, Film 4 and Channel 4 present a RAW production in association with Red Box Films and Passion Pictures, THE IMPOSTER. The film is directed by Bart Layton and produced by Dimitri Doganis. The executive producers are Simon Chinn (PROJECT NIM, MAN ON WIRE) and John Battsek (ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER, RESTREPO, THE TILLMAN STORY, PROJECT NIM).

UK Release Date: 24th August