You’ll never look at diamonds the same way after seeing Jason Kohn’s stunning exposé of the true value of these precious gems and the secretive industry that sets their price.
Completely melts the story that has been told and retold about the value of the engagement ring
Screened as part of NZIFF 2022
Nothing Lasts Forever 2021
“It takes perhaps a billion years to make a diamond, and just 87 minutes to shatter so many of the misconceptions audiences have about them in Nothing Last Forever, Jason Kohn’s wild, decade-long delve into the secretive world of the diamond industry… Jewellery designer (and Stone author) Aja Raden offers up this gem: ‘The truth about diamonds is: They’re all exactly the same, and none of them are really worth anything’.
Most audiences probably already have some inkling of how the De Beers diamond cartel took a not-particularly-rare stone and infused it with value by cornering the market, stockpiling most of the world’s supply and controlling the release at such a rate as to set the price. None of this would matter if the demand weren’t there, but it is, thanks to one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time: the infamous “A diamond is forever” tagline, whereby De Beers convinced the world that only a diamond would do for wedding engagement purposes…
Kohn has created the rare documentary that transforms the way we understand the world, questioning so many of our core beliefs, including the very notion of what is ‘real’. Through it all, diamonds won’t lose one iota of their sparkle, but you’ll never look at them the same way again.” — Peter Debruge, Variety