Prime Minister

Compassion is key in Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe’s political portrait of Jacinda Ardern’s time in office.

In the lead-up to New Zealand’s 2017 general election, Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly became the country’s opposition leader for the Labour Party. But it wasn’t the ambitious power play that voters had become accustomed to. The Labour Party was the underdog, Ardern was dropped into a prime ministerial race two months before the election, and just before the final vote was counted, she discovered she was pregnant. Ardern’s path to becoming prime minister was refreshingly unplanned, uncalculated and unlike anything voters had seen.

Featuring thoughtful audio diary entries, personal home videos and unprecedented access, Prime Minister journeys through Jacinda Ardern’s seven years in power as a trailblazing leader punching well above her weight on the world stage.

Curator’s note

If there has ever been an elixir for the ugliness of fascism, the cringey-ness of egocentricity and the frustration of tit-for-tat politics, Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe’s documentary portrait is just that.

Ambitious tropes be gone – this remarkable documentary recentres the political biography towards compassion, humanism and down-to-earth charm. Prime Minister premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it competed for the Grand Jury prize in the World Cinema Documentary section.