Forgotten Silver
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Forgotten Silver (1995) is a New Zealand film mockumentary. It was written and directed by Costa Botes and Peter Jackson (of The Lord of the Rings fame), both who star in the film as documentary makers.
It purported to tell the story of 'forgotten' New Zealand filmmaker Colin McKenzie, his lost films and his technological achievements that predated accepted history by as much as 20 years — in fact, McKenzie is a fictional character. The film featured 'recovered' archival footage in both black and white and colour, and with sound (supposedly from 1908). McKenzie's footage (after computer enhancement) also showed that New Zealander Richard Pearse was the first man to invent a powered aircraft, months prior to the Wright Brothers succeeding.
Costa Botes directed the 'documentary' portions while Peter Jackson created the 'achival footage' meant to have been filmed by McKenzie. There was a (staged) premier screening of a recovered feature film presented by film promoter Lindsay Shelton, as well as deadpan comment from actor/director Sam Neill and director and film archivist John O'Shea. The deadpan critical praise from international industry notables including film historian Leonard Maltin, and Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films, gave credibility to a rather fantastic story.
Despite being aired on NZ Television in a time slot usually dedicated to plays and mini-series, Forgotten Silver was billed and introduced as a serious documentary. A large proportion of the TV audience were fooled until the directors soon revealed they were "only joking".