FORGOTTEN SILVER is Peter Jackson's loving "tribute" to fictional New Zealand film pioneer Colin MacKenzie. MacKenzie purportedly invented such techniques as the tracking shot and synchronized sound in the early 1900s, well before anyone else had discovered them. After being overlooked by film historians for decades, the restored version of MacKenzie's lost biblical masterpiece SALOME is now available to audiences for the first time ever. FORGOTTEN SILVER is a well-researched and clever satire that presents moviegoers with a hilarious alternate history of early film. Also included on the U.S. video release is Robert Sarkies' short film SIGNING OFF.

New Zealanders Peter Jackson and Costa Botes conspired to create this witty mockumentary about Colin MacKenzie, a fictional film pioneer who, in the early 1900s, invented the tracking shot, the close-up, color film, and the talkie. MacKenzie's colorful career centered around the making of his three-hour epic masterpiece, SALOME, for which he single-handedly rebuilt the city of Jerusalem in the jungles of remotest New Zealand. The documentary film team sets out in search of MacKenzie's lost city and unexpectedly discovers a mysterious tomb in which he buried reels and reels of his work to prevent the mob and maybe even the Soviets (two of his backers) from gaining possession of it. Appearing as themselves are actor Sam Neill, film critic Leonard Maltin, and Miramax co-chair Harvey Weinstein, who enthusiastically (and with remarkably straight faces) liken MacKenzie to Orson Welles and D. W. Griffith. Co-directors Jackson and Botes's hoax was so effective that, when the film was first shown on New Zealand television, many viewers thought they really were seeing a documentary on the exploits of a hitherto undiscovered cinematic genius.