To Die For Diamonds

Blood Diamond is a film by Edward Zwick, the Academy Award-winning director of Glory and The Last Samurai. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are usually mined in war zones and are sold to finance the conflicts.

Controversies:

De Beers Group, which controls the vast majority of the diamond trade, has expressed reservations the film will reduce public demand for diamonds. De Beers maintains the trade in conflict diamonds has been reduced from 4% to 1% by the Kimberley Process and it has been suggested the company pushed for the film to contain a disclaimer saying the events are fictional and in the past. De Beers has denied this.

More recently, the New York Post has reported Warner Bros. Pictures promised twenty-seven child and teenage amputee extras for the film prosthetics upon completion of filming. Several month after the completion of filming, the prosthetics had not been supplied, and it was reported the studio told amputees they would wait until the December release of the film to maximize the publicity boost. In the meantime a private charity had to step-in and assist in supplying prosthetics to the amputees.

The film comes in the midst of an upsurge in public awareness of the conflict diamond trade, also highlighted in the media by rapper Kanye West in his song "Diamonds from Sierra Leone", a VH1 documentary about current conditions in Sierra Leone called "Bling", and a nonfiction expose called "The Heartless Stone".