Banksy’s art from Bethlehem on film

‘The Man Who Stole Banksy’, narrated by Iggy Pop, is about the removal of work painted by the artist

The Man Who Stole Banksy, a street art documentary that premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, spins a tale that mixes wouldbe art-world avarice with Middle East politics.

But the film about the removal and sale of a graffiti work on a concrete wall by anonymous British street artist Banksy in Bethlehem also serves to put a human face on an area beset by violence, said director Marco Proserpio.

“Most of the things I have seen about Palestine was picturing them as victims not just victims but not human beings,” said the 33-year-old Italian filmmaker.

“It’s not the common story you tell about Palestine,” he added. “The Banksy artwork was the right occasion to picture them as human beings.”

Banksy, who works in secret and whose artwork has fetched six-figure sums at auction, travelled to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank in 2007 and painted six images in the birthplace of Jesus.

The film focuses on one work — a black spray-painted donkey whose documents are checked by an Israeli soldier in an ironic twist on the Jewish state’s strict security — and how one day it went missing from its concrete wall.

The film, narrated by punk rocker Iggy Pop, dives into questions of ownership, theft and the sale of street art, whose creators may never see a penny when their public displays are taken into private hands.