Hot Picks: Con Girl

There are many stories about con artist Samantha Azzopardi – most of them told by her, and most of them untrue. Four-part Con Girl, a documentary series distributed by BossaNova and produced by Australian outfit CJZ, aims to tell the true story behind Azzopardi’s string of elaborate deceptions spanning 15 years, three continents and 75 aliases.

The result, says BossaNova chief executive Paul Heaney, is a show that will appeal to the section of the market looking for something more “cerebral than your usual ‘there’s a body, whodunnit?” crime series.

Olivia Daines, the distributor’s acquisitions and co-production executive, says the rise of true-crime podcasts has also done a lot to shape audience appetites – and increasingly, there is a desire to move away from stories that centre on a female body that has been abused by a (usually male) perpetrator.

“There’s this whole wave of buyers saying: ‘We’ve heard that story before, give us a new story’ – and I think Con Girl is that story,” she says.

What’s intriguing about Azzopardi, who is currently in prison awaiting sentencing after being charged with her 100th crime in Australia, is that although she orchestrated numerous cons, she doesn’t appear to have been doing it for financial gain, Daines says.

“One of the fascinating things about her is trying to understand the psychological motivations driving her,” she adds. 

The show, co-created by author, journalist and TV producer Lexi Landsman (Australia’s Deadliest), is made by long-time BossaNova collaborator CJZ (Murder In The Outback). The CJZ team behind the doc includes executive producer and showrunner Paula Bycroft (Deadly Women; Behind Mansion Walls; The Good Cop) and CJZ head of factual Andrew Farrell.

Con Girl got off to a less than auspicious start. The story was pitched in January 2021 during an online ‘development day’ event run by BossaNova to showcase projects to potential buyers – it was the first idea to be pitched, but wi-fi and sound issues meant that buyers couldn’t hear what was being said.

Despite this, Heaney says, the show caught the imagination of Australia’s Channel Seven, with Channel 5 and Paramount+ boarding with deficit financing – following delays caused by the pandemic.

The show is a departure for two-year-old BossaNova and a chance for Heaney to disassociate himself from his previous venture, TCB Media Rights.

“This was a chance for a new young company to get a slate going that isn’t held down by its history,” Heaney says.

The plan is to secure more “limited series that are very bingeable and likely to make a big splash in the market”, Daines says.

Heaney agrees. “Buyers are telling us that long-running franchises are all very well, but they don’t really prevent churn on platforms, whereas these short-run series are effectively churn preventers.”

The move into true crime will also “open up the US market for us, which is the crucial thing”, Heaney says – but he is quick to add that the company has yet to secure an American buyer.