Acclaim for Madonna's Malawi Documentary

Madonna the documentary-maker came, saw and conquered the world's biggest film festival yesterday with a powerful polemic on the effects of disease and poverty on Malawi. Next in her sights is the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The queen of reinvention presented her film, I Am Because We Are, which she wrote and produced, to general acclaim. Alongside her was her former gardener Nathan Rissman, who directed.

The film touches on the singer's high-profile adoption of a baby boy, David, whose mother was killed by Aids. Yesterday she compared the process - which generated many negative headlines - to the pain of childbirth. "It was painful and a big struggle and I didn't understand it. But in the end I rationalized that when a woman has a child and goes through natural childbirth she suffers an enormous amount," she said. "So I went through my own kind of birthing pains, dealing with the press on my doorstep, accusing me of kidnapping or whatever."

The singer added: "There's nothing controversial about the adoption. There's just a lot of bureaucracy and administration because this adoption essentially was the beginning of adoption laws in Malawi. I'm sort of the template or role model, so to speak, for future adoptions, and hopefully after we get through this adoption it will be easier for other people to adopt. I'm happy to be the guinea pig." Asked why she chose David, Madonna said: "I don't know, some things are inexplicable. I just felt a connection there. I felt a connection to many of the children, I wanted to take all of them home with me."

While Madonna is the producer, the film-maker is Rissman, who got to know the singer when his wife worked as a nanny. At various times he worked as her research assistant, video archivist, gardener and "manny" and won her over by making short films of her children, which he her sent while she was traveling.

Rissman spent about six months over a two-year period in Malawi, and has constructed a documentary which at times is heartbreaking. Both said they wanted to continue making documentaries focusing on children, with the Israel-Palestine conflict the next project they are working on. The singer said she would continue to help Malawi, and had bought the land, hired an architect and teamed up with Harvard University to build a girls' school in the country. She has also built an orphan care centre. The documentary was not part of the main competition.

Yesterday Steven Soderbergh spoke about his pair of movies, screened together for more than four hours, about the life of Che Guevara, which had been keenly awaited but left the audience baffled by their lack of dramatic structure. Soderbergh said critics complained about movies being too conventional and then complained when someone was not conventional enough. Benicio del Toro, who plays Che, added: "When people see the movie for the third time they will start to see it."