Forgotten Silver with a selection of inspirational shorts
Programme runs 62 minutes

Forgotten Silver, Wingnut Films, 1995

Written and directed by Costa Botes & Peter Jackson
Producer: Sue Rogers
Script consultant: Fran Walsh
Narrator: Jeffrey Thomas
Cinematography: Alun Bollinger, Gerry Vasbenter

With: Peter Jackson, Johnny Morris (also as Jonathan Morris), Harvey Weinstein, Leonard Maltin, Sam Neill, John O’Shea, Lindsay Shelton, Beatrice Ashton (Hannah McKenzie), Thomas Robins (Colin McKenzie) and a cast of thousands (Salome)

Colour, B&W “archival footage”, 53 minutes, PG

Forgotten Silver begins with the discovery by Peter Jackson of a hoard of old films in a neighbour's shed. Through these lost films and narration that features Mr. Jackson, the film writer and commentator Leonard Maltin, the actor Sam Neill and Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films, Forgotten Silver tells the story of the fabulous McKenzie. Born in New Zealand in 1888 and galvanized at 12 by a traveling picture show, he immediately found his true calling.

“Forgotten Silver, jointly developed by Peter Jackson and Costa Botes, was supposedly a biopic about the career of a previously undiscovered pioneer film maker, Colin McKenzie. It presented a convincing historical surface by using footage that looked as if it had come from a film archive and by employing one of the first actual local ‘star’ actresses (Ramai Hayward, in the role of McKenzie’s second wife, Hannah), while also building shamelessly on New Zealanders’ desire to be thought of as cultural and technological forerunners. The result was a fiction that was highly plausible, a ‘mockumentary’ that fooled many viewers on its debut in the television high-culture Montana Sunday Theatre slot. Joke and con that it was, Forgotten Silver nevertheless in some ways predicted exciting future events in film making in the final years of the decade.” — Ann Hardy, New Zealand Film: an Illustrated History

Preceded by
A selection of short films made by pioneer film makers who inspired the character Colin McKenzie

Coasts of New Zealand, Pathe Freres, 1910. Colour tinted travelogue, scenic shots of Milford Sound and dolphins following boats. (2:27 of 4:41 mins)
The Birth of New Zealand, New Zealand Cinema Enterprises, 1922. A fragment of the historical epic showing scenes at the Government ball. (1:02 of 10:27 surviving mins)
Family Picnic & Portraits, Lawrie Inkster, 1928. Lawrie Inkster experiments on the back law with his camera. (0:58 of 2.29 mins)
Welsh Sound System Test, Jack Welsh, 1930. An early sound-on-film experiment by Dunedin inventor, Jack Welsh. Introduced by Eric Platt. Curious children come to peer at the camera. (1:58 mins)
Rainbow Dance, GPO Film Unit, 1936. Len Lye transformed this original black & white footage into a film of complex colour patterns by manipulating the three matrices of the Gasparcolor system. (3:57 mins)

Filmland Neuseeland
This film programme was presented during October at the FIlmmuseum in Frankfurt as part of the cultural activities accompanying New Zealand’s Guest of Honour role at the Frankfurt Book Fair. New Zealand literature has had a huge influence on film production here; not only as a source of stories and themes, but also as a starting point for thinking about style and approach (the liking for naturalism and an interest in local details and ordinary people, for example). The programme is drawn from the DVD that accompanies New Zealand Film: an Illustrated History. The selection surveys New Zealand film from the early silent period to the end of the 20th century. Through the mix of features and documentaries with short films we hope to illustrate the emergence of a distinctive style of film making and story telling.