Think Canadian diamonds are more ethical than those coming from conflict zones? You won’t after watching Victoria Lean’s After The Last River, the documentary screening at Planet In Focus Film Festival’s opening-night gala Thursday (October 22) at the Royal. [See listing.]
While De Beers, the world’s largest diamond company, digs up 600,000 karats a year on land claimed by the Attawapiskat First Nation in remote northern Ontario, the aboriginal community must contend with crumbling, mould-infested housing, toxic schools for their children and mercury-laced waterways whose water and fish are unfit for consumption. The film culminates with Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence’s famous hunger strike in Ottawa that helped draw attention to the Idle No More movement.
Planet In Focus runs to Sunday (October 25). planetinfocus.org
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