Pietra Brettkelly was making a film about landmines in the south of Sudan when she had a chance encounter with Vanessa Beecroft, a lauded yet controversial artist who was exploring the country. When Beecroft mentioned that she was considering adopting twins she’d discovered in an orphanage, Brettkelly was intrigued, and spent the next 16 months following Beecroft’s bizarre and astonishing story.

The twins, it turned out, were not actually orphans – their father was still alive. And there was no Sudanese adoption law in any case, it being expected that extended family would step in if required. But Beecroft was not to be dissuaded, and pressed on with her attempts – whilst also working on an art project which involved her being photographed holding the twins to her breasts, a striking but unsettling image. She also wanted to photograph the children naked in the village church, a move which had local women battering on the locked door, furious at her flouting of social conventions. Her wide-eyed amazement at their rage, and her determination to continue regardless, give us clues to her personality – girlish and seemingly naïve, yet with a steely core. At this point her husband – at home in the US with their two children – had yet to be informed of the additions to his family. But Brettkelly tempers our amazement at this staggering self-absorption. She steadfastly refuses to judge, choosing instead to simply observe and attempt to understand Beecroft, interviewing her husband and (divorced) parents.

When Beecroft’s motives for wanting to adopt the twins are questioned, both by herself and by her husband, she seems unable to provide answers. Is she, like many Western women, fascinated by the increasingly “exotic” families of celebrities like Madonna and Angelina Jolie? Does she want to take the twins to the US for their benefit or hers? And is life in the West really “better” anyway?