Unseen footage of Parliament protest revealed in new documentary

New footage of the protest on Parliament is online from today. Photo / Whakaata Māori

Perhaps the most heated moment of recent political history is set to return to the small screen, in a documentary chronicling the conflict and conclusion of the vaccine mandate protests at Parliament.

Debuting exactly a year to the day police moved in to evict protesters, Boiling Point, an RNZ film, is a comprehensive account of the fiery, violent, chaotic, resolution of the three-week long occupation.

Previously unseen footage paired with eyewitness accounts gives fresh insight into the rage that overtook some people on the day police moved in to evict demonstrators.

“There has been huge amount that’s happened in the 12 months since the occupation of Parliament ended and, in some ways, it seems like it’s old news, but the occupation and protest was a big moment in our history. It was shocking and frightening for many New Zealanders.” RNZ’s head of news Richard Sutherland said.

Produced and narrated by Morning Report’s Corin Dann and directed by RNZ visual journalist Angus Dreaver, Boiling Point combines vision and audio with accounts from RNZ journalists and bystanders, to create a timeline of what happened.

“A year on, we wanted to put all of that extraordinary footage together into a single feature-length documentary record of events. Combined with footage not seen before, we’ve spoken in detail with eyewitnesses and our own reporters to create a story that’s a difficult but – we believe – important watch for the public record.”

Boiling Point can be viewed at rnz.co.nz/boilingpoint.