Erdachte Wirklichkeiten. Der Hollywood-Film BLOOD DIAMOND und die Aufklärungsallianz aus NGOs und Filmwirtschaft

Abstract

The Hollywood movie BLOOD DIAMOND and the alliance between NGOs and the film industry. The Hollywood Blockbuster BLOOD DIAMOND, which depicts the diamond and arms deals of the 1990ies in war-torn Sierra Leone, incited a collaboration between the film industry and the movie’s director and actors with NGOs who started the campaign against the trade in conflict diamonds; this article evaluates the impact of such cooperation. All of the parties involved in the production of BLOOD DIAMOND claimed to communicate the issue of conflict diamonds beyond the screen; thus, the proclaimed objective of the movie was, in addition to being entertaining, to educate viewers about the reality of confl ict diamonds and thus have a positive impact on the NGOs’ campaign. The article analyses why this project did not fulfill its self-claimed objective; furthermore, it discusses the conditions needed to make such collaborative efforts successful. The ambivalent role of NGO-campaigns, whose strategic goals are often characterized by market-economy criteria and not by a critical concept of intervention, is also discussed.