The Diamond
2021 · 16m · USA
Directed by Caitlyn Greene
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
At the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas — the only diamond-bearing site in the world open to the public — a documentary unearths the private lives of those who dig: a veteran, sisters, a recovering addict.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Greene's instinct to approach the Crater as a theatre of displaced longing — rather than a curiosity — belongs to a documentary tradition that treats vernacular American spaces as repositories of unspoken grief.
Crater of Diamonds State Park as democratic ground — that's a genuinely clever framing for working through grief, PTSD, and recovery in the same red clay. Sixteen minutes feels right.
Camden Vimeo Staff Pick 2021 — Greene using the democratic geometry of the only public diamond-bearing site (everyone digging in the same red clay) as formal metaphor for grief. Sixteen minutes of beautifully specific Americana.
Festivals
- Camden International Film Festival 2021, Vimeo Staff Pick Award