Grants & Awards

About the Film:

Diamond, Silver & Gold explores the ways in which value is manufactured, manipulated and controlled. First, the film chronicles the efforts of synthetic biologists to recreate the earth’s earliest life forms and asks what will happen when these scientists successfully replicate genesis for the first time in 4.5 billion years.  To contextualize this race to discover the origins on life on our planet, the film simultaneously explores the synthetic diamond industry. Although synthetic and mined diamonds share the exact same chemical properties, global cartels waged a successful PR campaign to define synthetic stones as artificial. Will lab-born cells suffer the same fate and be forever considered illegitimate or will they fundamentally transform our collective understanding of life’s origins? Ultimately, Diamond, Silver & Gold will engage these two stories of synthetic genesis in order to explore our primary cultural mythologies.

About the Filmmakers:

Jason Kohn (Director) Kohn directed and produced Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), which won numerous awards at film festivals around the world including the 2007 Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize.

Amanda Branson Gill (Producer) Branson Gill’s most recent film, Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure, won the 2008 Berlin Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize. She began her career at PBS/Frontline, reporting on the attacks of September 11th and the juvenile death penalty.

Jared Ian Goldman (Producer) Goldman is a two-time Sundance award-winning producer for Manda Bala (Send A Bullet) and The Wackness.  He also produced Solitary Man and is currently finishing Generation Um.