Costa Botes Trailers
The Last Dogs of Winter TrailerBehind the Bull TrailerForgotten Silver Trailer
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 Wonderland in 2009, mentoring its young director, Zoe McIntosh. This premiered at the NZ Film Festival and won awards for photography and best documentary the following year at the Qantas NZ Film & TV Awards. Costa wrote and produced another film for Zoe, a 35mm short called Day Trip (2010). This was selected to screen at numerous international festivals including Tribeca, Clermont Ferrand, and Hawaii. It won the Signis Award at Espression En Corto in Mexico, and best short film at the Montreal First Peoples Film Festival. Costa's next documentary feature, Candyman: The David Klein Story (2010), was about the eccentric American candy genius who invented Jelly Belly jellybeans. It premiered at Slamdance and Hot Docs in 2010, and won the Director’s Choice best documentary award at the Rincon Puerto Rico Film Festival. He followed this with two documentary features: Daytime Tiger (2011), a film about mania; and The Last Dogs of Winter (2012), about a man fighting to preserve rare Inuit sled dogs from extinction. The Last Dogs of Winter had its world premiere as an official selection at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Act of Kindness (2015), a documentary about a young New Zealander’s experiences in post-Genocide Rwanda won the Best Editing award at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival.
Costa also wrote and executive produced another short dramatic film for director Zoe McIntosh. The World in Your Window (2017) has screened at many top international festivals and won awards at Clermont-Ferrand, Tokyo, Melbourne, FlickerFest, Vancouver, Prague and Tahiti. His most recent work, Angie (2018) premiered at the NZ International Film Festival. It was described by one critic as a “deep, dark, daring wonder”. Another critic wrote, “Costa Botes has been making films for over 30 years: ANGIE is his best yet. He has always had a deft hand when it comes to emotional material. He has the ability to melt into the beautifully framed background and let the subjects speak, his flawless editing weaving a narrative spell”.
Most Popular Costa Botes Trailers
Total trailers found: 28
24 January 2010
Candyman tells the amazing true story of David Klein, an eccentric candy inventor from LA, who came up with the concept of Jelly Belly jellybeans.
01 April 2004
A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of 2003's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
18 October 1998
Grace is a homeless teenager. She befriends an unemployed carpenter and he invites her to share his flat.
01 January 1992
River runs the one-man operation of Tranquility Records, recording animal sounds near his house and making music from them.
01 April 2002
A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
19 December 2000
When Forgotten Silver — the story of pioneer filmmaker Colin McKenzie — unspooled on 29th October 1995, in a Sunday TV slot normally reserved for drama, many believed the fable was fact.
11 December 1987
A team from the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb's Crunchy Delights descends on Earth, planning to make human flesh the newest taste sensation.
01 April 2003
A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of 2002's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." Created by filmmaker Costa Botes, personally selected by director Peter Jackson, this documentary uses raw footage to reveal the inside story on how the greatest adventure film franchise was born.
03 February 2017
Eight-year-old Jesse lives in a twilight world of sadness and silence, squeezed into a tiny caravan with his grief stricken father.
03 October 1997
The life story of Colin McKenzie, a forgotten pioneer of international cinema who was born in rural New Zealand in 1888.
28 July 2022
When the Cows Come Home introduces audiences to Tilly and Maggie, a pair of cows that musician, journalist, artist and cow whisperer, Andrew Johnstone has befriended and subsequently saved from slaughter.
29 July 2018
Angie Meiklejohn, prominent and articulate Centrepoint survivor, is joined by her siblings in this lucid exploration of the legacy of sexual abuse, directed without a hint of sensationalism by Costa Botes.
31 July 2015
Charting the ripple effects of real compassion, this inspiring true story follows a spirited young New Zealander’s search for the Rwandan samaritan who assisted him through a dangerous predicament over ten years before.
13 July 1988
Originally made for NZ television in 1988, this one hour documentary is now something of a time capsule or historical piece.
26 December 2003
Making of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
16 July 1987
It is 1962. New Zealand is emerging from the austerity of the 1950s into a new age. Daniel is a nine-year-old Catholic boy, an only child given to colourful imaginings.
06 September 2012
Costa Botes takes us far, far north of his native New Zealand for this magical documentary about man's four-legged friends.
18 May 2020
On the cusp of adulthood, the world's longest running gay short film series is only getting started. Boys On Film 20: Heaven Can Wait includes eleven complete films: Bassem Ben Brahim's animated "Chromophobia"; Jimi Vall Peterson's "Sleepover" starring Hjalmar Hardestam and Simon Eriksson; Mickey Jones's "Just Me" starring Philip Olivier and Carl Loughlin; Matthew Jacobs Morgan's "Mine" starring Joshua McGuire and John Macmillan; Dale John Allen's "Don't Blame Jack" starring Jordan Tweddle and Kane Surry; Timothy Ryan Hickernell's "Foreign Lovers" co-starring Lucio Nieto; Layke Anderson's "Mankind" starring Ricky Nixon and Alexis Gregory; Christopher Manning's "Isha" starring Horia Săvescu and Dario Coates; Jay Russell's "ruok" starring Peter Mark Kendall, Zachary Booth, and Sydney James Harcourt; Chintis Lundgren's animated "Manivald"; and Zoe McIntosh's "The World In Your Window" starring Joe Folau and David Lolofakangalo Rounds.
08 November 2025
A journey into the life of blind jazz musician Caitlin Smith as she explores how her voice as a musician and teacher has become a tool of identity, resilience, and empowerment.
11 August 1989
S04E06 of "The Ray Bradbury Theater." A company provides big game hunters with expeditions to the past to kill dinosaurs.
16 July 2009
A vivid first person look at the annual blues festival held in Nepal. The film features many performers but also shows the city and country, including a hair raising bus trip and a visit to the elephant breeding centre at Chitwan National Park.
14 July 2010
A gang member wakes up one morning and decides he needs a day off. Inspired by a newspaper advertisement he impulsively decides to take a short ferry trip between islands.
03 April 2014
What happens when you cross poor white trash with gangsta culture, then stick it on a horse? You get the Deadly Ponies Gang.
16 July 2008
After 35 years of playing, one of New Zealand’s most accomplished Blues troubadours had still never recorded an album.
16 July 2008
Nigel Gavin ran away with a circus when he was fifteen. Many years later, he is still performing incredible feats.
23 July 2011
Costa Botes’ portrait of New Zealand writer Michael Morrissey is indeed a tiger-ride – an up-close encounter with an extremely intelligent man in the grip of bipolar disorder.
19 July 2009
The Times of London cited barrister Rob Moodie for the most outrageous behaviour by a lawyer in 2006 after he represented himself in the New Zealand High Court dressed as Alice in Wonderland.
12 July 2006
Their music has been described as deep blues from way down under, as if the Mississippi River had gorged its way through the center of the earth and come home in.
