Jacindamania: $3.2m raised for NZ documentary on extremism and online hate
The New Zealand Film Commission is putting $800,000 towards a documentary about former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern.
In a statement the Film Commission said the documentary explores the rise of violent extremism and online hate in New Zealand, while covering Dame Jacinda’s leadership.
The commission said the documentary was not authorised nor endorsed by Dame Jacinda, and she has no editorial involvement.
“It is important to note this is not a biopic. Rather, the documentary explores the rise of violent extremism and online hate in New Zealand, following Jacinda Ardern’s leadership trajectory as an example of how these forces played out through one of the most tumultuous periods in modern times.
“The documentary records a period of New Zealand’s history.”
The documentary is being produced by Emma Slade of Firefly Films, with the writer-directors Pietra Brettkelly and Justin Pemberton.
The Commission said Brettkelly and Pemberton were among New Zealand’s most experienced documentary makers and the project was in the Commission’s slate presented at Cannes Film Festival in May 2023 to potential international partners, under the name Jacindamania.
Good.
The topic deserves a documentary and we should be putting Taxpayer cash up for it, however, there could be a bit of an issue if we look at the immediate past.
Mister Organ got $750 000 from the Film Commission and that was one of the worst documentaries to ever be made in this country!
It was nothing more than revenge film for David Farrier against someone he hated.
When the fuck did we start commission revenge fantasies as documentaries?
Likewise the appalling middle class docudrama, Fire and Fury doco by Stuff.
Little was revealed in the Stuff Circuit documentary that TDB and a dozen other commentators haven’t already pointed out, bad faith actors with dark American money radicalised the Lumpenproletariat but if we on the Left had been doing something meaningful towards the economic anxiety and pain Covid had placed on so many, these bad faith actors wouldn’t have a mob to manipulate in the first place!
This is why we had to de-escalate the Parliament protest rather than inflame it, BECAUSE EXACTLY WHAT TDB WARNED WOULD HAPPEN – HAPPENED – and that was the mass radicalisation of far right NZ.
Because there were so many bad faith actors trying to whip up frightened and angry disconnected people, we had an obligation and national security reason to dial this down!
All Trevor Mallard did by ordering in the cops was radicalise 5000 new stormtroopers!
A point Fire and Fury utterly missed!
Will a documentary on Jacinda and the appalling hatred whipped up against her manage to remain objective or will it become another tedious virtue signal pushing its own barrow of grievances against the smelly Lumpenproletariat?
Can it provide context or will it simply provide gasoline?
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As long as the documentary is even handed regarding Ardern and shows both sides to her leadership…her performance during Chch shooting and the start of Covid.
But also show the latter stages… Covid mandates, podium of truth and her popularity crashing.
Then it will be watchable, but if it’s all about the first and little of the latter then it will be an 800k puff piece, could have given the money to Women’s Day magazine to do it.
Covid mandates were a responsible life saving necessity…anything else would have been grossly irresponsible, and even criminal ,given the information provided to the Government at the time…
The ‘podium of truth’ , along with ‘Cindy’s Kindies’, were narratives
started up by the right, ( the crooked Michelle Boag) , who were freaking out that the professionalism showed during the handling of Covid by Labour and Dr. Bloomfield and his team made them look like the bunch of rank amateurs that they are.
What i hope the documentary shows is what National and Act were saying at the time about what should be done, the irresponsible wilful mischief making, the lies they were spinning, and what the disastrous downstream consequences of their stupidity would have meant had they been in power.
All those stats are available!
That’s what a balanced story would include!!
Exactly right Grant.
National and their friends were dreaming up all sorts of nasty comments and slogans to belittle the Labour govt’s stance. The amount of vitriol was mind-boggling. Were those childish comments actually being made by someone born and bred in NZ, a fair-minded NZder? It was hard to believe they could be so petty and nasty.
So, the documentary definitely needs to compare the two stances taken.
The right’s, who would have had us dying by the thousands and the Left’s which was trying to save lives.
They took their leads from Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. What ghastly examples of modern leadership! Total amateurs.
Ms. Ardern and Mr. Bloomfield listened to science, not witch doctors from the business community. They were as you say, dealing with the problem professionally and made laughing stocks of Simon Bridges’ inadequate party.
Yes, it was willful mischief making. Looking at you too, David Seymour.
In NZ we have a thing called OSH which means if you know of a hazard and do nothing about it, you are culpable if people die or are injured if it’s found that you could have acted. The govt. would have found itself in the same position as the owners of White Is. are now – guilty of doing nothing much to mitigate the problem. The moment WHO said it was a global pandemic, the govt. was duty bound to do as they did.
The right can make all the stupid childish statements they like. They would have found themselves in big trouble.
If Jacinda were to be asked what should happen to the money allocated for this documentary I think she’d say give it to the first responders, the people who go out of their way to help others every day.
But if they must make it, see that it’s completely balanced.
Re OSH, knowing of a hazard but do nothing and being culpable.
Spain became the first country to use rapid tests to facilitate a return-to-normal with rapid tests being widely available in pharmacies in December 2020
3 FEB 2021 First COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in NZ.
Well put, Grant.
Good response Grant, I note Im right using a right wing narrative “podium of truth” but I do feel for Im right given he had to listen to it everyday at home from his mother Michelle Boag.
Covid vaccine mandates were an overreach of power.
Rapid antigen testing could have been used far earlier.
Therefore, the question is, why were they delayed?
It is my understanding the term the ‘podium of truth’ comes from Jacinda’s Orwellian claim re being the one source of truth.
No you fwit, Jacinda made that statement in view of the fact that the misinformation brigade were in full flight. It was Barry Barely sober who bastardised what she had to say which was, we won’t bullshit you!
Piss off, anti vax cooker filth. If you are antivax, you are anti science and anti humanity. I’m guessing you are a flat earther and a creationist who would burn people at the stake for suggesting the earth revolves around the sun.
I’m Right. It looks as if this doc could be an opportunistic money spinner to flog off overseas, where Ardern has been seen as the epitome of kindness. The mosque massacre established her as this, and without that, and the pandemic, there’s not a lot else to say. Anti-free speech might pop up.
My guess is this will be a softening for new anti-free speech laws. After all, isn’t that what Jacinda is currently working on?
The film commission would not have funded it if it was at all critical of the authoritarian side.
We have the right whinging about a person spitting toward Seymour and another giving him shit about karma when his scooter dumped him where he belonged ,in the gutter .That is pale compared to the filthy shit Jacinda had to put up with .I reported many cases where she was threatened with rape and murder of her self and her daughter .The average kiwi was too busy being selfish and taking as much public money for them selves to even notice .Then they spent the next year on a massive spending spree ,for which they are now paying interest to off shore banks because they owe a total of 540 billion .
Like John Key endured then?
Keys detracters were kindergarten compared to what Jacinda faced .I never saw anyone threaten to rape him .
Yes Gordon W. that was factual stuff. It doesn’t illustrate us in warm human colours. I feel that the reaction to those days is going to be as unpleasant as the original behaviour and will not improve our future behaviour. Like it is hard to learn to be better when finger-pointing at everyone else and hysterically ranting.
The country has faults which remain hidden till exposed by earthquakes or careful study. Faultlines in the planet, seem paralleled by those in society. But we can diminish society’s if we apply our minds strongly, Can we turn our strength of mind to what we can do and try to limit and be ready for outbreaks of anger and aggro. The planet is invincible. I hope our own fault lines are manageable.
I suggest that it was Mallard tormenting the protestors with water and noise so bad that he had to warn nearby apartment dwellers that they might want to get out, which shocked people, and not just right-wing people. That was Mallard’s decision, not the cops’ decision.
Had government had the courtesy, and the maturity, and the political nous to engage with the protestors in the first place, they mightn’t have had to call the police in, but they didn’t. They stayed hidden in the Beehive, protected by the same police who they used to do their dirty work for them, and who bore the brunt of protestor anger, with physical injuries, covid infections borne home to families, and disrupted family lives.
Political persons who did engage with the protestors, like Winston Peters, were then issued with trespass notices by Trevor Mallard. Trevor was rewarded for not just his ineptness, but his inflammatory behaviour by being given a plum diplomatic posting, and Peters vilified ever since, as some sort of a tin-hat nutter.
Throughout the whole dreadful maelstrom , not one politician, including the so-called Minister for Children, Kelvin Davis, had the guts to do anything about the kiddies and babes in arms being subjected to something which they should not have been.
Ardern appeared for a photo-op after it was over, with the same smile which she sported when saying that she was establishing a two- tier society. It wasn’t a smiling matter.
All the while lives were being saved and the river of filth should not have exposed kids to that environment .The parents should have been arrested and charged with neglect .Why would The pm have engaged with a lynch mob.We now have those same people with a voice in government and can see what sort of world they aspire to.
Yes, how to engage with people who are convinced they’re being turned into magnets or that vaccines are a nefarious plan to reduce the world population by 80%?
That’s an honest question. A high percentage of those people were simply deranged.
You seem to have forgotten many of them were/are from the left They have no voice as the left seem to have abandoned them and this lot don’t really speak for them.
Many had lost their jobs, thus their homes/accommodation. Hence, had nowhere for the kids to stay. Many didn’t initially plan to stay that long.
The PM didn’t have to directly engage with the mob. They had representatives and she could have put forward her own.
The reason why she should have engaged was to repair the damage done. Afterall, she created a two-tier society. And that is no small thing.
All they needed to do was get vaccinated. Just a 5min little prick in the arm. They didnt have to make a big deal about it.
Quite frankly if you refuse to get vaccinated, you might as well just get a spell book or sacrifice goats, because its basically a rejection of modern science.
The Government made becoming vaccinated with a experimental vaccine (that doesn’t stop transmission, prevent one from becoming ill, going into hospital or dying) a big deal. While failing to provide an already approved viable alternative (RATs) earlier.
All they had to do was give people that choice.
Im sorry, but people should be made to be vaccinated. Its a basic tenet of science, going back 200 years., As I said before, you sound like you are stuck in the middle ages.
Section 11: Right to refuse to undergo medical treatment
This provides that everyone has the right to refuse medical treatment.
This right protects the concept of personal autonomy and bodily integrity.
Respect the right.
Apart from appeals to authority. Is there any other reason why the government should force people to do anything?
precisely! well said! in a nutshell !etc etc etc.
This was a FAILURE of leadership.
Ardern was VERY poorly advised and the rest as they say is history.
Shona I feel that you are in the unfortunate position that most of us are in – being short on information about national problems. But one thing that would be worse is knowing and being expected to change set procedures and policies by the public. Understanding the problems but being unable to steer the country or one’s colleagues in a way that is
not agreed because others advise otherwise.
We are freer to make snap decisions, and decide on suitable approaches as we will not be held to account for negative consequences. The power behind the throne of democratic leader makes the advisors and elders of the Party, a Force to be Reckoned With.
Maybe it wasn’t poor advice but a case of I Know Better…you Captains Call…
There is no way that Jacinda Ardern should want this documentary to ever be made. There is no plus side for her in it as a person getting on with her life.
I have zero faith that it will be objective and I don’t see the point in it. People that love her will die on a hill protecting her and those that hate her will happily die storming that hill. Online hate is a thing? What a newsflash.
She was a person with her good points and her flaws put into a very strange situation.
Not having the courtesy to meet the protesters early on was what made things escalate on Parliament’s lawn and what Mallard was thinking I really don’t know. Did he think he was the governor of Colditz?
That was the final straw for many people who has started to question Jacinda’s grasp of reality.
Making a documentary about her is likely to cause more trouble than it’s worth.
However, this present govt. is also extremely discourteous to we ordinary NZ’ders. There is hardly a group left which hasn’t been targeted cruelly, their sensible advice ignored, their traditions trampled on and their hopes for their future destroyed.
When Mr. Luxon called poorer people bottom feeders you should all have pricked your ears up.
To be so disparaging to the people he planned to rule and to describe us overseas, as whiny and wet, should have immediately told people that he wasn’t going to be a good PM. How extremely rude and condescending.
In short, who on earth did he think he was, speaking so arrogantly about his country-men and women?
It shows that Mr. Luxon only considers us a commodity that he can sell. Everything and everyone is up for sale. They will create a huge fire-sale and the world will come running looking for the best bargains.
Lack of courtesy will be their downfall, just like Labour’s.
NZders have generally been mild-mannered and respectful but Mr. Seymour and his keen-as side-kicks and Mr. Luxon and his compromised old duffers, are trying our patience. Be rude and dismissive of us and things we hold dear, at your peril.
Joy. Indeed. Luxon’s “ bottom- feeders” was crude, shocking, and also a political misstep. So was Wood’s “ river of filth”, and Tamihere’s calling women “ front bums.” If these vulgarians don’t realise that there are things they may say among each other in private, which are not appropriate in public, then they they’re not fit to be politicians. Luxon is looking a bit dotty anyway. His shiny black car ride was absurd, and pushing through more and more legislation under urgency, despotic, IMO.
Think back to Helen Clark calling the South Island West Coasters feral when they didn’t want to stop cutting down native forest.
There’s old saying that’s true every generation – ‘Power tends to corrupt, And absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.’ But that’s a cliche when said on its own. Because if politics gets looked on as a fractal for instance, then our present politics and the pressures that apply to it, is only part of another fractal, that’s part of etc and on. That is what the free trade thing around the world is about and why the culture and ways of any individual country are under attack.
Grey Warbler. A Pike River bereaved person was also referred to as feral in some dialogue between Key and Slater, but I don’t recall which of the odious pair said it. Gutter language like Luxon’s is best kept in the gutter, but politicians and some journos deliberately use over- emotive language to try and influence the punters, and that is intellectually dishonest.
Joy’s comment about Luxon would have resonated with many people who disliked hearing others referred to in this way, or being dragged down to his level, and if that’s his usual modus operandi, he could be a giant-sized social embarrassment interacting overseas.
They had promised to arrest Jacinda and try her in a kangaroo court, inspired by Trumpist rhetoric about Nuremberg. That used up all the courtesy due them.
They should have been forcibly removed on day one, just like any other insurrectionists, and counted themselves lucky if they spent no time in prison. The owner of Red Stag, who funded them, should have been in court for incitement too.
The crowd gathered considered they had cogent points. To demonstrate to others who also were convinced of that, government should have dealt to the points and depowered them with reason and got ideas on how to repair the problems that were apparently or not, picked from those offered by the crowd. That would have flattened their ideas and confused the detractors. That would have been sensible and statesmanlike. But not from our politicians, apprentices or interns at their base.
Grey Warbler. They only had to listen, that’s all. Get the various leaders in for chats, take their points on board, be polite. One of govt’s first excuses was that there were no readily identifiable leaders.I doubt there was unanimity among the protestors; some were rubberneckers, some band waggon jumpers, some reasonable, some nutters. Turning the hoses on them was idiotic. And Mallard actually appealed to the public to tell him their most objectionable music to blast at them. Pretty juvenile.
Ironically they got what they wanted. All vaccine mandates were dropped a couple of months later.
Stuart Munroe,
I’m close to that opinion, but they had a right to protest and I defend them in that regard, in so far as picketing is concerned, particularly during the daylight hours.
But Parliament isn’t a public camping ground and they should have been moved on the instant they pitched a tent with intent to sleep overnight (or arrested for resisting, if required). They should have been welcome to return each following day to shout and protest etc. That is their right. Nor, for even a moment should any intimidation of the general public for mask wearing and for following mask recommendations in businesses etc have been tolerated by the police.