west diamonds New DiCaprio Film Rattles west Diamond Industry
June 28, 2006 By Tova Cohen found at www.backstage.com
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rough diamonds
"The Blood Diamond," a film in production starring Leonardo DiCaprio,
could hurt diamond sales and the livelihoods of people in Africa, industry
leaders warned on Tuesday.
The Warner Brothers film being shot in Africa shows how "conflict
diamonds" financed bloody civil wars. DiCaprio portrays a mercenary jailed
for smuggling in Sierra Leone, where a civil war lasting until 2002 killed
50,000 people.
Industry officials attending the opening of the World Diamond Congress said the
situation with conflict diamonds had dramatically improved in recent years and
expressed concern that the movie would not reflect this.
"The problem of conflict diamonds is practically over," Shmuel
Schnitzer, outgoing president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB),
told Reuters at the conference in Tel Aviv, among the world's top diamond
cutting and trading centers.
"To show a film that will lead the public to think the situation is still
the same is an injustice to our industry which has done so much," he said.
In a press release issued in February, Warner Bros. Pictures said The Blood
Diamond, starring DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly, had started production in
South Africa and Mozambique.
It did not say when it will be released and company officials could not be
reached for comment. The unofficial IMDb movie database has the U.S. release
date as January, 2007.
Shopping Season
The diamond industry fears the movie could hurt sales, especially if it hits
theatres around the end of the year during the peak holiday shopping season.
"The people that the movie is trying to help could be hurt the most if it's
left without an explanation since livelihoods in Africa depend on income from
diamonds," said Eli Izhakoff, chairman and CEO of the World Diamond Council
(WDC).
"It will hurt them with a downturn in sales. It can have an adverse effect
on all of Africa," Izhakoff said.
He and other diamond industry officials say the situation has changed radically
since a system of certification for rough diamonds known as the Kimberley
Process was instituted in 2000.
The WDC is currently negotiating with the movie studio to add a scene at the end
that would show the implementation of the Kimberley Process.
"They are hearing us and getting documentation and evidence," Izhakoff
said. "When all is said and done, they want to be fair."
According to Schnitzer, conflict diamonds account for only 0.2 percent of the
world's rough diamonds, down from 3-4 percent a few years ago, but industry and
human rights groups differ on how much the practice persists.
Amnesty International, which launched a Valentine's Day campaign against
conflict diamonds, said that diamonds mined in rebel-held areas of West Africa's
Ivory Coast were still reaching the international market.
Additional reporting by Steven Scheer
COPYRIGHT: (c) Reuters 2006. All rights reserved
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