Costa Botes

A team from the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb's Crunchy Delights descends on Earth, planning to make human flesh the newest taste sensation. After they wipe out the New Zealand town Kaihoro, the country’s Astro-Investigation and Defense Service (AIaDS) is called in to deal with the problem. Things are complicated due to Giles, an aid worker who comes to Kaihoro the same day to collect change from the residents. He is captured by the aliens, and AIaDS stages a rescue mission that quickly becomes an all-out assault on the aliens’ headquarters.

A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." 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.

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. With his tattooed face, black leather clothing, and prominent gang patch, the gangster is a fish out of water when he arrives in the idyllic small port town of Picton. The experience he has there will change his outlook on life forever.

A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of 2003's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." 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.

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.

The life story of Colin McKenzie, a forgotten pioneer of international cinema who was born in rural New Zealand in 1888.

S04E06 of "The Ray Bradbury Theater." A company provides big game hunters with expeditions to the past to kill dinosaurs. They only have one rule that's there to protect the time line: Never get off the beaten path.

Making of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

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.

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.

Eight-year-old Jesse lives in a twilight world of sadness and silence, squeezed into a tiny caravan with his grief stricken father. They're in limbo, existing more than living. The child intuitively understands that looking forward is harder than looking back, and that's where life happens. But they are stuck, until an accidental friendship with a V8 driving transsexual unlocks the means for Jesse to liberate his father and himself.

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. These colorful beans became a pop culture phenomenon, revolutionized the candy industry and were personally endorsed by Ronald Reagen. However, David's eccentric personality and peculiar sense of business led him to leave Jelly Belly just as it was about to explode and grow into a billion dollar enterprise. Is there room for eccentric genius in the modern corporate world? The film tells how Klein may have lost his beans, but kept his soul.

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. He’s a straight bloke who likes to wear dresses. To some, he seems a freak, to others he’s a hero. Rob Moodie is an enigma to most. Until now.

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. Controversy ensued as a public reacted (indignant, thrilled) to having the wool pulled over their eyes. Costa Botes, who originated the mockumentary, later made this doco, looking at the construction of McKenzie's epic, tragic, yet increasingly ridiculous story. He interviews co-conspirator Peter Jackson and other pranksters, and they muse on the film's priceless impact.

River runs the one-man operation of Tranquility Records, recording animal sounds near his house and making music from them. The only neighboring house is for sale, and noisy Ted buys it and moves in, creating trouble for River.

What happens when you cross poor white trash with gangsta culture, then stick it on a horse? You get the Deadly Ponies Gang. Dwayne and Clint have been the "bestest of friends" forever. They love hip hop, and horses, but they don't like guns, and they can't afford cars, so the pair have taken to pimping out their ponies instead, blinging out their rides with pearls, glitter, and gold (all plastic, of course) eternally trying to impress the ladies.

Grace is a homeless teenager. She befriends an unemployed carpenter and he invites her to share his flat. She moves in and to her surprise a delicate relationship develops. He helps her repair her shattered self-esteem and she begins to feel loved and secure. But then she discovers his secret - he tells her he is Jesus Christ.

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. It’s also a harrowing portrait of marriage vows tested to the extreme. Morrissey was diagnosed with manic depression in 1999 but long rejected available medication, believing it would stymie his genius. Having failed to find a publisher for his written account, he invited the filmmaker into his house to record his battle to ‘tame the tiger’ through willpower.

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. The garrulous herdsman is enthusiastic to expound his views on animal husbandry, bovine communication and the vagaries of life in general, before the film walks us back through the events that have shaped the singular farmer-philosopher. From personal family tragedy to warring with Catholic school authorities, innovating in Hamilton’s nascent music scene to creating guerrilla art installations; Johnstone’s life has had a truly idiosyncratic trajectory. Mental health issues may have seen him retreat to life on the farm, but the film makes clear its subject’s restless inquisitiveness is far from being put out to pasture.

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...New Zealand of all places. They are the Windy City Strugglers. This film offers a funny and passionate look at 40 years of obscurity and great music.

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. He discovers that an old man who passes the plate in church bears a striking resemblance to the great Russian dictator, Joseph Stalin. Daniel starts to believe that the old man really is Stalin, come to take over New Zealand. Daniel takes it upon himself to give Stalin a fright and send him on his way. He hits on a method of doing so after finding where the old man lives and spying on him. Stalin is banished, but events take a strange twist, leaving Daniel with an even worse threat to deal with.

Costa Botes takes us far, far north of his native New Zealand for this magical documentary about man's four-legged friends. Brian Ladoon is an eccentric, lone-wolf Canadian who has dedicated his life to saving the extinction-threatened Qimmiq - a species of canine used by local Inuits for centuries as hunting-hounds but now abandoned in favour of motorised skidoos. The snowy wilds of remote northern Manitoba make for a stirringly picturesque backdrop for footage of the rugged but irresistibly cute Qimmiq, not to mention the polar bears who occasionally amble by. Doing their best to make an impact among such furry scene stealers are the crustily ornery Ladoon and his unflappably laid-back younger Kiwi assistant, former teen-TV pinup Caleb Ross.

After 35 years of playing, one of New Zealand’s most accomplished Blues troubadours had still never recorded an album. Some of Dave Murphy’s friends decided that had to change. This film documents the creation of his first long playing record.

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.

A Canadian-produced fantastic anthology series scripted by famed science-fiction author Ray Bradbury. Many of the teleplays were based upon Bradbury's novels and short stories.

All adults have been wiped out by a deadly virus, leaving the children of the world to fend for themselves.