A documentary traversing former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s leadership and personal life through home videos, archival footage and fresh interviews has premiered at Sundance.
The film, Prime Minister, directed by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz covers Ardern’s five-year tenure, after her abrupt ascension to leader of the Labour party in 2017, just six weeks out from an election her party was widely expected to lose. On a wave of popularity dubbed “Jacindamania”, the then-37-year-old led the party to victory, becoming the world’s then-youngest ever female leader.
Speaking to the Sundance audience, Ardern said she hoped the film would help humanise people in leadership.
“[The film-makers] took the opportunity to tell the whole story – the highs, the lows, the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Ardern’s shock win was quickly followed by a succession of head-turning events, including becoming the world’s second leader to give birth while in office and grappling with national crises including the country’s worst terror attack and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ardern’s brand of politics, which repeatedly emphasised the values of empathy, humanity and kindness, catapulted her into a global icon of the left.
Towards the end of her time in office, Ardern’s legacy at home became more complicated, and she faced criticism over her government’s failure to make headway on its promises to fix the housing crisis and meaningfully reduce emissions. As the pandemic wore on, a small but vocal fringe of anti-vaccine and anti-mandate groups emerged, leading to a violent protest on parliament’s lawns and threatening rhetoric directed at Ardern.
Ardern shocked New Zealanders in January 2023 when she said she was stepping down because she no longer had “enough in the tank”.
The film features home-footage, shot by Ardern’s husband, Clarke Gayford. Speaking to Deadline, Ardern said the impetus to keep personal records of her time in office, both through home video and via an oral history project, was sparked by her appreciation for history and a desire to keep a record for her family. She also hoped it would also serve as an acknowledgment of Gayford.
“When you are in public office, there’s not always a lot of light shone on the people who are supporting you, in the village that’s around you … I didn’t do the job alone and I didn’t raise my daughter on my own.”
In an promotional video for Sundance, the directors said they had “an embarrassment of riches” when it came to material for the film.
“Not only the incredibly intimate footage that Clarke, her husband gathered, but these classified audio diaries that gave us a glimpse into what she was feeling in the moment,” Utz said.
Since leaving office, Ardern has taken up dual fellowship roles at Harvard University, continued her work on the Christchurch Call – a project she established to combat online extremism, after the Christchurch mosque shootings – and joined the board of trustees of Prince William’s Earthshot prize.
Last week, she announced the release of her upcoming memoir, A Different Kind of Power.
