Costa Botes

Biography

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…

Directed

1. Forgotten Silver (1997) — Director
2. The Ray Bradbury Theater (1985) — Director
3. The Tribe (1999) — Director
4. The Making of 'The Fellowship of the Ring' (2006) — Director
5. Candyman: The David Klein Story (2010) — Director
6. The Making of 'The Return of the King' (2006) — Director
7. The Making of 'The Two Towers' (2006) — Director
8. Saving Grace (1998) — Director
9. Behind the Bull (2000) — Director
10. Angie (2018) — Director
11. The Making of The Lord of the Rings Collection — Director
12. The Last Dogs of Winter (2012) — Director
13. When the Cows Come Home (2022) — Director
14. Act of Kindness (2015) — Director
15. The Ray Bradbury Theater: A Sound of Thunder (1989) — Director
16. Stalin's Sickle (1987) — Director
17. Catching the Tide: Sam Hunt's Cook Strait (1988) — Director
18. Struggle No More: The Windy City Strugglers Story (2006) — Director
19. Yes That's Me: Dave Murphy Plays the Blues (2008) — Director
20. Kathmandu Blues (2009) — Director
21. Nigel Gavin: A Job with the Circus (2008) — Director
22. Daytime Tiger (2011) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Bad Taste (1987) — 3rd Class Alien
2. Forgotten Silver (1997) — Self
3. Behind the Bull (2000) — Self
4. The Last Dogs of Winter (2012) — Self