Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Dame Jacinda Ardern says she backs the new US documentary as it’s not being funded by New Zealand taxpayers: “We’ve stopped seeing people in public life as human. Mine is a human story and a New Zealand story.”
The New Zealand Film Commission will continue to support a $3.2 million unauthorised film on Dame Jacinda Ardern - likely to receive around $2m in taxpayer and public support - despite Hollywood producing a full-length documentary that does not rely on New Zealand taxpayer money.
The two movies will both be released in 2025.
The Herald revealed today that Ardern was supporting the new American movie, produced by renowned US firm Madison Wells, largely because it was not seeking public money.
“This project has my support,” Ardern told the Herald of the US film. “The producers have not sought or used Film Commission funding and that was important to me.”
The Film Commission (NZFC) said today that the new Hollywood movie did not impact plans for a New Zealand production of Ardern’s life - the local film has a working title of Mania.
In February, the NZFC agreed to taxpayer funding of $800,000 for Mania. The film – due to start production later this year with an August 2025 release date – is likely to receive a further $1.2m in public support through the Government’s screen production rebate.
“Madison Wells appear to be doing an authorised biopic on Dame Jacinda Ardern’s political career, while the independent Mania documentary explores quite different social and political issues in New Zealand society arising out of her tenure as Prime Minister,” said NZFC chief executive Annie Murray.
“It will be good for the NZ viewing public to have the contrasting stories available at about the same time. Each work will likely benefit from this as well.
“The success of Mania is not undermined by the Madison Wells doco; NZFC is not reviewing funding; and we remain confident that it can proceed as planned.”
New Zealand producer Emma Slade, who is behind the NZFC-backed project, did not respond to messages and questions on Friday.
Variety reported that Madison Wells’ official Ardern movie out of the US is untitled but is due to be released next year.
“It follows Ardern from the moment she receives the Labour Party nomination to the birth of her child to her resignation in 2023, when she was at the height of her power and popularity,” reported Variety.
“The filmmakers are promising a movie that provides a ‘very raw and personal point of view of politics in our time’, as well as a feature that comes with Arden’s support.”
Ardern told the Herald: “It’s a bit nerve-racking having a project like this out there but I think we’ve stopped seeing people in public life as human.
“Mine is a human story and a New Zealand story. If that makes a difference for someone else then I think that’s worth sharing.”
Madison Wells chief executive and the film’s producer, Gigi Pritzker, told Variety: “We are so proud that our first doc chronicles the life of the extraordinary Jacinda Ardern.
“Her uniquely empathetic and inclusive leadership style has been and continues to be an inspiration to people everywhere, including me. This is exactly the kind of empowering, moving and boundary-pushing story we tell here at Madison Wells.”
Madison Wells film and TV head Rachel Shane said a “dream team” of filmmakers had been assembled to tell Ardern’s “trailblazing” story.
“Bringing these creators together in the service of sharing one woman’s exceptional journey is only the first step in this exciting project, and we can’t wait to share it with the world,” Shane told Variety.
The website reported that CAA Media Finance was handling rights.
Madison Wells produced the Oscar-winning The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water. Its latest production slate includes Genius: MLK/X, My Spy The Eternal City, and Miss You, Love You.
Documents released by the NZFC under the Official Information Act in May reveal NZFC chair Alastair Carruthers, a friend of Ardern, left the commission’s February board meeting while funding for the New Zealand documentary was discussed – as part of conflict-of-interest protocols.
Board meeting minutes show that the NZFC discussed risks with the project, with the board seemingly aware that Ardern did not back the project. “The risk of an injunction from the documentary’s subject Jacinda Ardern was deemed low,” said the minutes.
Producer Emma Slade told the Herald in March of her project: “The filmmakers have been in contact with Ardern’s team to discuss the film, but Ardern has chosen not to communicate her thoughts on the documentary to the filmmakers.”
Slade said that the documentary was being “independently produced, without any involvement or editorial control from Jacinda Ardern”.
“It is authored by New Zealand filmmakers who have firsthand experience of this significant period in New Zealand’s recent history. It’s important to note that this film is not a biopic of Jacinda Ardern, but rather it is focused on the reaction to her leadership.”
In a synopsis, the New Zealand documentary is described as “a social excavation of the rise and fall of the young female leader, Jacinda Ardern, exploring how the mania that propelled her rise later collided with a backlash of hate, told through a bold mash-up of media and peer archive”.
Some senior production industry sources earlier questioned whether the film – which is being developed by highly regarded documentary filmmakers Pietra Brettkelly and Justin Pemberton – would suffer without Ardern’s endorsement or PR support.
They have also questioned the $3.2m cost of producing a feature film when such a project might be better suited for the small screen, with smaller production costs.
Earlier, Murray said she believed a small-screen version would not have been as attractive to an international audience, and might therefore not have received the same level of foreign investment.
“Decisions on formats are made well before projects come to us for funding approval – those are really questions for the producers to determine at the outset of a project,” she said.
“It may be possible to produce something like this at a lower budget for television, however it would be unlikely to attract the same level of international investment and would therefore be more difficult to sell the project internationally. It would primarily be for local audiences only.”
The movie was originally promoted with the working title of Jacindamania.
It then became The Untitled PBK and JP Project for a time but its new working title was Mania, the NZFC and Slade confirmed in April.
Neither Murray nor Slade would name the distributor at that time.
“We are currently focused on making the film. There is no need for them to be named at this stage,” said Slade.
The NZFC, in order for it to agree to public money for a project, demands that a distributor be attached.
“To be clear, the documentary has a distributor attached as is required of all films NZFC invests in,” said Murray.
But she said in April the distributor would not be named “at this time” for reasons of “commercial sensitivity”.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
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