Clarke Gayford on his doco Prime Minister: ‘Jacinda’s time in office was a whirlwind – we were just trying to keep our heads above water’
There are moments in Prime Minister, the documentary about Dame Jacinda Ardern, that you see coming. Her elevation to the leadership of the Labour Party and the 2017 election. The announcement of her pregnancy, alongside partner Clarke Gayford. The Christchurch mosque shootings. The pandemic lockdown announcement. The pregnant visit to Buckingham Palace. The whole family at the United Nations. The resignation. The wedding.
But Prime Minister is something more than a scrapbook of news conference soundbites or a travelogue of international Jacinda-mania. It is sometimes those things, too. But helped by Gayford’s footage filmed along the way – he’s a media veteran as a presenter, and a producer of his own fishing show – the film becomes a remarkable backstage examination of her political and their personal lives through the period.
Gayford’s camera captures everything from funny family moments, such as his toddler daughter Neve working a room like a campaigning politician (“nice to meet you, nice to meet you”), to Ardern gazing from the ninth floor of the Beehive at the occupation of Parliament grounds and the protesters’ signs threatening to kill her.
A year later, we see Ardern at home trying to decide what to wear to her resignation announcement and Gayford filming and asking her whether she should have learnt to delegate more. He gets the sort of withering response usually reserved for leaders of the opposition and male broadcasters offering their reckons on women in power.
The documentary is a joint venture between Auckland and US production houses and directors Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz, whose respective credits include documentaries on Richie McCaw, the Wiggles, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift. Gayford is one of six producers and gets a cinematography credit, too.
It’s his first feature-length documentary, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of the year. When it screened at the NZ International Film Festival last month, there weren’t many dry eyes left in the house. “I definitely ruined some of my friends’ make-up,” says Gayford, who was at the documentary’s local premiere.
Prime Minister is released internationally this month just as Ardern’s second book of the year, kids’ story Mum’s Busy Work, follows her bestselling memoir into shops.
Meanwhile, after a day of getting their 7-year-old daughter to her various activities in London, where the family is currently based, Gayford is on Zoom to talk about his part in the making of Prime Minister, which, as a documentary-maker, is the biggest fish he’s ever caught.
We should possibly apologise or something that this is a film about a woman, made mostly by women. And here we are talking to a male producer, cinematographer, and husband of the lead.
Look, if it makes you feel better, I was out-ratioed in just about every single meeting on the film that we had.