When word got out that Jacinda Ardern would be sitting for a documentary about her time as the world’s youngest female leader, Madison Wells founder Gigi Pritzker and film and TV head Rachel Shane knew they had to get involved. After all, the company’s goal is to showcase stories by and about “badass women,” and Ardern’s tenure as the prime minister of New Zealand made her an international symbol for what women could do. She earned praise for her response to the coronavirus pandemic and for balancing her office while becoming a new mother.
Pritzker and Shane made their case to Ardern directly during a series of detailed conversations in Los Angeles, and ultimately won the right to produce the movie during a heated back-off that also included winning over Ardern’s now-husband, Clarke Gayford.
“She and Clarke both were very thoughtful and deliberate about who they wanted to be partners with,” says Pritzker. “Part of the bake off process was them getting to know who their partners would be. Part of it is, ‘How’s it going to get financed?’ But a lot of it is, ‘Who do we feel comfortable giving our story to and collaborating with?”
Adds Shane: “I think what helped seal the deal was that we were a team of women who really prioritized making this a female-led project.”
The film, directed by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz, arrived at Sundance in January, where it won the audience award for documentary. As the review from The Hollywood Reporter noted: “The word kindness comes up over and over in Prime Minister as the key to Jacinda Ardern‘s political philosophy. That sounds gooey and naive, but this disarming and intimate documentary about her six years as New Zealand’s head of government shows it to be the effective basis for a career that made her a global political star.”
“There were people coming up to us afterward crying, just so moved, so thankful, so ecstatic to see an example of somebody like her on screen, just proving that it can be done that way,” says Shane. “Younger women especially.”
After a theatrical run via Magnolia, has since aired on CNN, and as of late last month, is now on HBO Max.
One of the surprises of making the doc came with how people reacted to the former prime minster’s now-husband, Gayford. “There are a lot of men who’ve seen the film, who are looking at Clarke as potentially a model for a different way of partnership and fatherhood, existing in the world. That’s been really fun,” says Shane. “So it’s not only the ladies who’ve been excited about it.”
Maddison Wells bills itself as a company that “empowers badass women and boundary-pushing storytellers.” But it has also made ostensibly male-skewing projects such as the Chadwick Boseman crime drama 21 Bridges and the Taylor Sheridan-penned neo-western Hell or High Water.
“If you look at Hell or High Water, if you look at 21 Bridges, it’s the people pushing boundaries piece of it as well. For us, the badass women can be in front of the camera, behind the camera, the subject of the story. So there’s a lot of ways to think about how we look at material,” says Pritzker.
In addition to Prime Minister, the company’s recent releases include Nonnas, the Vince Vaughn feature about a man who honors his late mother by opening a restaurant that hires Italian grandmothers as the chefs. Netflix won the project in a bidding war, and the film was Emmy-nominated for outstanding television movie.
Says Shane with a laugh: “Everybody’s just been so hungry after they’ve watched it.”
