CostaBotes
- Director
Costa Botes had a long independent career as a director of drama (Stalin’s Sickle, Saving Grace), a run of feature-length documentaries (Angie, Candyman, The Last Dogs of Winter) and at least one film that is very difficult to classify (Forgotten Silver). Botes also spent many years as a film critic, with a reputation for an acerbic wit.
Screenography
Biography
Born on the Turkish island of Imbroz to Greek parents, Costa Botes grew up in Wellington from the age of three. An early love of cinema led to experiments with a Bolex wind-up camera while at high school. Botes was "bored witless", doing an English Literature degree at Victoria University, when he heard about a film course being offered at Ilam School of Fine Arts in Christchurch. He scraped in days before the course began, after someone else dropped out.
Awards
2010 Qantas Film and Television Awards (New Zealand)
Best Popular Documentary or Documentary Series: Lost in Wonderland
Best Cinematographer Documentary/Factual (shared with Marty Williams, Gareth Moon and Zoe McIntosh)
“Nothing could be more surprising than the controversy that erupted ... Despite all the (we thought) obvious clues we planted ... a large proportion of the audience swallowed the whole thing. ”
More information
Link to watch full-length documentaries directed by Costa Botes, Vimeo website
Costa Botes' CV, Massey University website
November 2023 Waikato Times interview
Extended interview, Off the Tracks website, November 2016
Interview on documentary The Last Dogs of Winter at Toronto, The NZ Herald, September 2011
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