Set in 2006, the film follows television journalist Chris Hansen at the height of NBC’s reality-crime phenomenon, a programme built around hidden-camera sting operations that lure suspected online child predators to staged meetings with decoys before confronting them on camera and turning them over to law enforcement. The show becomes a ratings sensation, transforming crime reporting into prime-time spectacle. As public fascination with the programme grows, those behind it become increasingly entangled in a system driven by audience demand, ambition and moral certainty.
“Chris Hansen pioneered a spectacle of punishment – the moment moral outrage became must-see TV. His show always fascinates me, in part because of the way it collapses fiction and reality: the predators are acting on real, horrific impulses, but they are led into a highly constructed environment where they interact with actors and a TV host.” (Lance Oppenheim)
Lance Oppenheim
Born in 1996 in Hollywood, Florida, USA, Oppenheim graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies. He is regarded as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary American nonfiction cinema, known for blending documentary observation with highly stylised cinematic storytelling.