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Promotion has started for Blood Diamond film by the stars. | | By Fran Goldstein www.diamond-key.com | Noting that Djimon Hounsou isn't convinced by the rhetoric, he gives his reasons and also his thoughts about the World Diamond Council.
And he questions the benefit of diamonds to Africa.
"Blood Diamond" an unkind cut
Glenn Whipp, Film Critic 11/03/2006
http://www.dailynews.com/filmpreview/ci_4599190
Ed Zwick's "Blood Diamond" has been is making headlines well before its December opening. In fact, well before it started shooting, in fact,says star Djimon Hounsou.
"We knew the diamond business would be backpedaling, justifying their own existence before knowing what our story is about," Hounsou says.
"They are nervous about our movie."
Nervous enough that the World Diamond Council has supposedly earmarked as much as $15 million for a worldwide marketing campaign to refute the charges made in Zwick's film.
"Blood Diamond" follows the travails of a mercenary (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a tribal fisherman (Hounsou) who confront the diamond cartels that go to great lengths kidnapping, terror, enslavement to scare people into working the mines.
Benefit to Africa
"The western companies trading diamonds with Africa, you can't help but say, 'Where is the benefit to Africa?'' " Hounsou says. "How can countries with so much wealth be so deprived? Please give me a justifiable answer."
The action-adventure movie is set in Sierra Leone in the 1990s against the backdrop of civil war and chaos.
It's Hounsou's second movie with a connection to the African country, following Steven Spielberg's 1997 slave-ship mutiny story "Amistad."
Kimberley Process
Diamond Council has already taken out newspaper ads, saying that the brutality portrayed in the movie is a thing of the past. The trade group points to the Kimberly Council, a three3-year-old, United -Nations-backed certification system designed to keep so-called blood diamonds off the market.
Hounsou isn't convinced by the rhetoric.
"These terrible things are still going on in some places," the actor says.
"Security councils don't enforce rules. It's the same story all over Africa. Hopefully people will think about these things when they see the movie."
New Poster:
http://www.canmag.com/news/4/3/5631
Warner Bros has increased the grade and carat on their upcoming film Blood Diamond with a feature poster that offers a ton more sparkle than the teaser.
Marketing Approach:
Playing it cool, Warner Bros uses the poster to drop a few names including Glory and The Last Samurai.
Both good choices, both good soundtracks, so kudos to the choice of films to use as examples for director Edward Zwick.
SOURCE: http://www.dailynews.com/filmpreview/ci_4599190
SOURCE: http://www.canmag.com/
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