A documentary will help clear your name. That was the pitch.

Anthony Broadwater had spent nearly 17 years in prison, convicted in 1982 of raping Alice Sebold, a Syracuse University student who would go on to write a highly praised memoir about her ordeal.

After his release in 1998, he was shunned as a sex offender and struggled to find work. He spent decades trying to prove he had not raped Ms. Sebold.

Then, in July 2021, he met Timothy Mucciante, a disbarred lawyer from Michigan who told Mr. Broadwater he had also spent time in prison. Mr. Mucciante, who said he was now a film producer, offered to make a movie about Mr. Broadwater’s life that would show the world Mr. Broadwater was innocent.

Mr. Broadwater said he immediately believed that Mr. Mucciante would help him. The ex-lawyer said he knew many wealthy people interested in justice and had already hired a private investigator and contacted two attorneys in Syracuse about the case. In September 2021, Mr. Mucciante signed a contract with Red Hawk Films, a fledgling film company, which began filming almost immediately.

Filmmakers interviewed Mr. Broadwater and his partner for hours, following him to his father’s gravesite and the courthouse where he was convicted. They captured his agonizing wait for a court hearing and the climactic moment when an Onondaga County judge finally heard his case.

Mr. Broadwater thought he finally had found a friend, a savior and a truth teller.

“I thought he was going to be very honest and cared,” Mr. Broadwater, 64, said during a series of interviews that The New York Times conducted over the course of eight months with him and his partner, Elizabeth Broadwater. “This guy,” he thought, “is really going to help me.”