Time to get reel

This year’s NZ International Film Festival programme is full of documentaries about local arts figures – and one former arts minister.

- BY RUSSELL BAILLIE

First the book and now the movie. Former prime minister Jacinda Ardern's memoir A Different Kind of Power has been keeping the nation’s bookshops in business in past weeks. Now comes the US-NZ documentary Prime Minister as the centrepiece of this year’s NZ International Film Festival.

The film, partly shot by Ardern's husband Clarke Gayford in a series of video diaries while she was in office, was released theatrically in the US last month, just as A Different Kind of Power became a New York Times bestseller. Its screenings in the NZIFF’s 10 centres will be the first in her home country.

Ardern and Gayford won't be attending the first showing in Auckland on August 2, which is a pity if only because it would have been a rare instance of a former NZ premier attending a NZ premiere for a film about her time as premier.

But it's likely to be a boon for the festival's coffers anyway. This year’s NZIFF has increased its number of features and sessions, following the post-Covid austerity measures it took last year. Those reduced the run from 17 days to 10, which also dropped ticket sales nationwide from 138,000 in 2023 to 92,000 in 2024. Last year’s Auckland event featured 80 or so features in 130 screenings across three venues. This year's 10-day event has about 110 features in 220-plus screenings across six venues, including three suburban cinemas, with Wellington having about the same.

Prime Minister