While it seems like it might make comments on international adoption in general, The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins is more about one crazy lady

The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins

Check listings for details

Vanessa Beecroft is an art star. The Italian-British artist has become a darling in the art world over the course of the last 15 years through her performance art pieces, which usually include a congregation of barely clad female models. Often considered controversial, Beecroft took her sense of audacity one step further when she became fascinated with the people of Sudan — particularly a pair of motherless infant twins that she breastfed, photographed and ultimately wanted to take home with her.

The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins apparently started off as an examination of the process of international adoption when director Pietra Brettkelly, who knew little of Beecroft’s art world fame, ran into the artist while filming another project in Africa. As filming progressed, it became clear that the movie would be about much more than the typical westerner looking to save a Third World orphan, since Beecroft does not resemble the stereotypical charity worker in any way, shape or form.

In the film (one has to give her the benefit of the doubt and blame editing for at least some of her trespasses), Beecroft is instantly unlikable, coming off more like a spoiled little girl who has her eyes set on a prized pony than a unselfish maternal martyr who wants to give the twins in question a better life. Brettkelly never really sits her down and asks why she wants to adopt the little boys, but instead films Beecroft using the twins as props in her art pieces and complaining when the Sisters in their orphanage try to protect the children from being exploited.

The story becomes more complex when Brettkelly delves into Beecroft’s own unhappy childhood, but things only become truly bizarre when it’s revealed that Beecroft already has two young children at home in New York as well as a husband who has no idea that his wife plans to bring two babies home from Africa.

What keeps The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins interesting is Brettkelly’s lack of interference with the subject. She does not seem to be judging Beecroft, though the subject’s own behaviour prevents the audience from feeling much sympathy. In the end, this film doesn’t speak much on the topic of international adoption, but rather on a very specific individual and why children, no matter what country they’re from, should not be treated as objects d’art.