Director Pietra Brettkelly follows internationally acclaimed contemporary artist, Vanessa Beecroft on her journey to war torn Sudan. The Art Star and Sudanese Twins is the story of Vanessa's representation of the Sudanese culture through art, her efforts and challenges surrounding foreign adoption. The themes intertwine and raise several political debates and ethical questions.

The film carefully examines the relationships between the high end NYC art world with a small South Sudan village as well as motherless Sudanese twins to Vanessa's birth children; difficult comparisons that provoke uncomfortable but important thought and discourse.

Director Pietra Brettkelly has created an extraordinarily multi-layered and powerful film that forces us to think about the roles and responsibilities of artists, mothers and privileged North American citizens.

-Jen McNeely

An Interview with Director Pietra Brettkelly:

How did you decide on this subject matter?

I first met Vanessa Beecroft in February 2006 in South Sudan.  I was filming a documentary on landmines and in particular a New Zealander working as a de-miner, handling the remnants of battle left after Africa's longest running civil war.  Vanessa had been drawn initially to Sudan with a need to understand the Darfur situation, and was beginning the process of adopting the twins she'd been breastfeeding at the local orphanage.

After my team and I departed for the Ethiopian border, and she and her team returned to New York where she lived, I contacted her wanting to document the adoption.

Six weeks after we first met, we were again back in Africa, this time meeting in Nairobi before boarding a charter flight through Lokichokio and into Rumbek, South Sudan.  

But international adoptions was a subject that had interested me for a while.  I was also in the middle of a two-year two-part documentary on an international adoption of a Romanian child.  

What was your main objective in making this film?

Initially it was to discuss the issue of international adoptions, whether this was how we in the west, in the so-called 'privileged' society should be handling the situation of numerous parentless children.  I was keen to talk also the situation in developing countries where some of these children did actually have parents, but so desperate was their situation that giving their children up for adoption could be seen as an opportunity for the child and sometimes the extended family.  

But of course once I started to realise and understand who Vanessa Beecroft was the film shifted into a much more multi-layered story.

What were the toughest challenges you faced?

You name it, its there in this film.  From filming in a country where we had to try and slip in and out of without always the proper documentation, to filming a lot of scenes in another language that neither I nor my cameraman understood, to finance.  In New Zealand with such a small population and therefore limited funding opportunities, there isn't support for international films not about New Zealanders.  But I knew that this was an opportunity to broach the subject of international adoptions in a country still raw from war.  I leapt into the self-funding abyss and thereby the uncertainty all that entails – when is the conclusion, who is my audience, is it a feature film or a commercial one hour documentary?

I part owned a Sony HDV camera and some sound equipment and managed to buy Director of Photography Jake Bryant's and my flights on airpoints that I'd saved.  We flew from New Zealand to Australia to Dubai to Nairobi, exhausted but charged by a return to the beautiful, stark strength of sub-saharan Africa.    

We filmed with Vanessa in Rumbek, South Sudan for two weeks.  Some days she concentrated on her artwork and others the adoption.  Often Jake and I grappled with what our film was about.   It was becoming more and more apparent that as her gallerist Jeffrey Deitch would later tell me, with Vanessa there is no boundary between life and art.  

I realised I couldn't make a film about the adoption without including her art.  But to what extent?

Those who know Vanessa realise she is somebody whopushes boundaries and some days were difficult, not only because of her intentions with her art and the adoption, but because this was a country still grappling with its place in peace.

What is the most rewarding result from the making of your film?

To even complete a film like this is a reward in itself.  To then get the passionate positive responses from Vanessa and the others involved, and the audience at Sundance was incredible.  And then to be honoured with the Best Editing award at Sundance 2008.

If you had to use three words to describe your film, what would they

be? For me experiencing making this film, for the story itself and the wonder that is Sudan and its people, and for the enlightenment I got from observing Vanessa Beecroft  - Struggle, Reward, Pride.

Art Star and the Sudanese Twins Screenings:

Monday April 21, 9:45 PM Alliance Cumberland Cinemas

Thursday April 24, 1:30 PM Alliance Cumberland Cinemas

Sunday April 27, 9:00 PM Bloor Cinema