About the film

Diamond Rivers is a portrait of Geraldo Santos da Silva, part of a dying breed of diamond prospectors who still scour the riverbanks of Brazil looking for this rare gemstone. In his eighties, Geraldo continues to prospect as he reflects on the boom-and-bust cycle of the sleepy town he refused to leave. His children have long since gone, and the few remaining neighbors practice the arts of caçhaca and barrell-making, in the same way they did before the diamonds were discovered there.

The wind flaps through the shutters of this near-abandoned town, and more people live under tombstones than walk the streets. The church and the market are the two remaining centers of this town, where the circus passes through every five years. Geraldo himself says, the diamond prospector has no future, no stability. He lives only for the day, but then again there are some very good days. Good days indeed.

Social Impact

Taken by a town that one was booming but lost its resources, Director and Producer Bill Benenson became interested in how humans consume an environment until it no longer has value. Preserving resources and environments became a theme in Bill Benenson’s future work.