The White Diamond is a 2004 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 by Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...

. It illustrates the history of aviation and depicts the struggles and triumphs of Graham Dorrington

Graham Dorrington

Graham Dorrington , is an English aeronautical engineer. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1989 and was formerly a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, though he is now teaching at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia...

, an aeronautical engineer, who has designed and built a teardrop-shaped airship

Airship

An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...

 which he plans to fly over the forest canopies of Guyana

Guyana

Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...

. It features music composed by Ernst Reijseger

Ernst Reijseger

ERNST REIJSEGER Cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger plays the cello from the age of seven and began as a performing cellist and improviser in 1969. From that time on he developed his own musical vocabulary...

, which was re-used in Herzog's 2005 film The Wild Blue Yonder

The Wild Blue Yonder

The Wild Blue Yonder is a science fiction film by the German director Werner Herzog, released in 2005. It has been presented at the 62nd Venice Film Festival, where it was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize. It went on to screen in competition at the Mar del Plata Film Festival and the Sitges Film...

.

Most of the film focuses on Dorrington's flights near Kaieteur Falls

Kaieteur Falls

Kaieteur Falls is a high-volume waterfall on the Potaro River in central Guyana, Potaro-Siparuni region. It is located inKaieteur National Park. It is 226 meters high when measured from its plunge over a sandstone and conglomerate cliff to the first break...

, in Guyana

Guyana

Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...

. Dorrington discusses the mechanics of his flight, as well as his own struggles with uncertainty and the "heaviness" he feels after the death of the cinematographer Dieter Plage. The film also explores the Kaieteur Falls themselves, a local man named Marc Anthony Yhap, a local diamond miner, and the white-tipped swifts

White-tipped Swift

The White-tipped Swift is a species of swift in the Apodidae family.It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela....

(Aeronautes montivagus) which roost in an inaccessible cave behind the falls.