The Hustler

What drives a man to make cheating his way of life?

In 2017, David strikes up a relationship with a girl from Barcelona and a few days later swindles her of eight hundred euros with the promise of a trip together. David, as Francisco Gómez Manzanares called himself, is a charismatic guy, with people skills, seductive, who claims to have good contacts and pretends to be a sergeant of the Maritime Rescue. The complaint lodged for this small fraud ends up bringing to light an unprecedented case: that of a professional conman who has accumulated more than fifty previous complaints and has conned people around Spain out of approximately three million euros.

Following the life trajectory of this conman, Guillem Sánchez, winner of the Ortega y Gasset journalism award, constructs a work that immerses us in a Spain of urban development, slot machines, the worship of success and the obsession with appearances on social networks. A journey into the real pain of sentimental swindles and an attempt to delve into a character as disturbing as he is fascinating.