Costa Botes

Costa Botes has been an independent film-maker in New Zealand since the early 1980s. His short film Stalin’s Sickle won the jury prize at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in 1988. Forgotten Silver, a mock-documentary co-written & co-directed with Peter Jackson in 1995 created a national sensation in 1995. It won a special critics prize at the Venice Film Festival, and has become a cult favourite worldwide. Costa’s first feature film, Saving Grace (1997), was selected for competition at Valladolid, Asia-Pacific, and Fantasporto Film Festivals. He documented the making of Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy Lord of the Rings trilogy from 1999 to 2003 with a matching trio of feature length documentaries. These were released in a limited edition DVD box set in 2006, and later included in the definitive blu-ray collection released in 2011. Costa established his own production company, Lone Pine Film & TV Productions in 2005 to make independent documentaries. These have included Struggle No More (2006), a biography of NZ’s greatest unknown band, and Yes That’s Me (2008) about a blues musician with manic depression. He photographed, produced and edited the documentary, Lost In Wonderla…

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