According to Wiktionary, "ille" is mainly sed to refer to persons or things which are not near to the speaker.

I imagine a Roman citizen pointing across the street to an kindly, old weaver. The citizen says, "Ille est benignus."

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ille#Pronoun_2

According to the Latin Wikiversity course, the word "is" can also refer to far persons or things, but it places less emphasis on the distance than "ille" does.

https://en.m.wikiversity.org/wiki/Latin/Demonstratives_Lesson_1

Literally "is" means "this (one)" and "ille" means "that (one)" but both can usually be translated to "he"