More than 60,000 Muslims in New Zealand have filed a petition against the makers of the Hollywood film They Are Us, and Prime Minister (PM) Jacinda Ardern has also strongly protested against a book published as her biography.
Initially, some people speculated that the topic of the Hollywood film will highlight the Christchurch mosque incident that occurred in 2019, when a single gunman opened fire at the Muslim worshippers in a terrorist attack, killing 51 people and 40 injured.
However, New Zealand filmmaker Andrew Nicole cleared the rumors that the focus of the film is on Jacinda Ardern’s actions following the attacks, and Australian actress Rose Byrne has been signed to play the role of Ardern.
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The news spread on social media in no time and became controversial for the prime minister and the production team of the film.
A petition calling for a Hollywood film about the Christchurch mosque attacks to be shut down, has now gathered close to 60-thousand signatures. Sondos Quraan was one of the people who started the petition. She spoke with our producer @mtheunissen01 https://t.co/jn5MiS59s3
— First Up (@FirstUpRNZ) June 13, 2021
Denying all allegations, the prime minister immediately released a special statement clarifying that the filmmakers had never consulted her in this regard.
Moreover, some of the locals believe that the film should talk about the victims and their victim community, who haven’t been consulted yet.
In this regard, the petition organizer and the spokeswoman for New Zealand’s National Islamic Youth Association, Adibah Khan said, “The issue is that the film is about Jacinda Ardern, but it’s not her story to tell”.
On the flip side, the news is circulating on social media that a biography on the prime minister has been released by the name Jacinda Ardern: Leading with Empathy that features her exclusive interviews.
However, Arden denied it saying that she was contacted by the authors in 2019, who wanted to write a book on women and political leadership and they mentioned that the project will include 10 more female political leaders.
But to her surprise, the book has been published as her biography, now she demanded a clarification.
To which, co-author of the new biography said that the book was supposed to feature other females too, but the changes were made in 2020 and cleared that none of the authors doesn’t have any intention to deceive the prime minister by writing a biography on her alone.