Episodes

Part One - The Dream

The first episode illuminates the history of the industry and the clever marketing which has made diamonds such an important part of our lives. It also follows a diverse cast of characters who all have a diamond dream: a miner in the impoverished country of Sierra Leone trying desperately to support his family on less than 3 dollars a day; an industry leader moved by the plight of the miners in Sierra Leone who is trying to create a market for fair trade diamonds; a former US General who has started his own virtual mine; a veteran geologist who's still hunting for his very own diamond discovery in Northern Canada; and a conflicted Yellowknives Dene Chief who fears that the money his people are making from the diamond mines in Canada may cost them their traditions.

Part Two - The Stone That Divides

The second installment of Diamond Road travels to New York, South Africa and Sierra Leone, all places along the diamond pipeline that have been marked by the dark and the light of diamond history. In South Africa, the birthplace of the modern day diamond story, Maria Farmer and Willem Diergaardt fight to reclaim their land and the diamonds that sit on top of it. This is the new South Africa, emerging from the shadows of apartheid, rewriting the wrongs of the past, in which diamonds divided the haves from the have-nots and Black from White. At Christie's auction house in New York City, we meet Jacob Zupnick and Andy Cohen. They are two Jewish diamond dealers, inheritors of the rich history that saw many Jews escape war and oppression with a tiny cache of diamonds, their secret passport to a new life. In Sierra Leone, the film follows two smugglers who were part of the illicit trade in rough diamonds that fuelled a brutal eleven-year civil war. Industry leader Martin Rapaport journeys to this devastated country launching his crusade to gain fair wages for Sierra Leone's exploited diamond miners.

Part Three - The Arrival

The final episode of Diamond Road crisscrosses the globe, following both the small and the epic journeys of our characters. Manoj is a thirteen year old child polisher from India who leaves his village and his father's cotton farm to apprentice in the diamond cutting factories of Surat, now a major diamond centre. Akshay and Arjav are part of the Mehta family who own Blue Star Group, one of the largest diamond manufacturing companies in the world. Andy Cohen bids on an old, challenging stone at Christie's auction in New York City. When he wins it, the diamond is entrusted to a cutter who transforms it into the finest jewel it can be and the good natured wheeling and dealing begins, ending when it passes on to its new owner. Meanwhile, in Sierra Leone, Martin Rapaport's dream of fair trade diamonds faces more obstacles than he could have ever imagined.

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